5 Benefits of Adding Green to Your Office
Looking to freshen up your work environment? Go green! In addition to giving your workspace a bright new look, adding plants to your office has several proven benefits—from boosting productivity to improving air quality—that you and your team won’t want to miss out on. Whether you spring for a succulent on each desk or opt to install a green roof, you’ll see a big impact. Check out the top five benefits of adding green to your office and get inspired!
1. You’ll work better.
Our brains are programmed to seek out nature—even looking at a picture of plants can provide cognitive benefits like increased focus and attention. This increase in cognition means that our brains feel refreshed and more productive over the course of a busy workday. In fact, studies have found that adding just a few plants to an office can increase productivity by up to 15 percent.
2. You’ll feel happier.
A happy workplace is the best workplace, and adding some green can put your team on the fast track to feeling good. In a study done on “lean” versus “green” workplaces, employees reported greater satisfaction and happiness after plants were added to their formerly sparse office. And as anyone who loves the outdoors can confirm, contact with nature is one of the best ways to combat stress!3. They’ll keep noise to a minimum. Can plants really help you build a distraction-free workplace? As it turns out, they can! Plants absorb sound, which is why you’ll often see shrubs and trees used to reduce the noise of traffic near residential areas. Place potted plants along the edges of your office to tweak the acoustics and limit common distractions from meetings, snacking, and more.
4. You’ll breathe fresher air.
Nothing brings down a team’s mood like a stuffy, stale office. In addition to breathing in CO2 and pumping out fresh oxygen, plants can actually filter out harmful chemicals from our air. A clean air study by NASA found that common indoor plants can remove up to 87% of toxins like formaldehyde (which can be emitted by synthetic office furnishing) from the air we breathe in every day.
5. You’ll see a jump in creativity.
Stay on top of your innovation game by making sure your team is able to think as creatively as possible. People who work in environments with natural elements report being 15% more creative overall; another study found that when viewed right before a creative task, a green plant can actually enhance creative performance. It makes sense—when we’re calm, we tend to think better.
With so many reasons to bring a little verdure into your workplace, it’ll be hard to resist going green once you begin. Get started with a few potted plants and see how your work environment—and your team—flourishes!
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