Workplaces frequently equate cost-savings with better productivity and manage space making it ‘tightly controlled, uniform and spartan’.

Knight’s research uses scientific methodology and finds time and again that the correlation between well-being and productivity is direct and that miserable spaces – like the ones alluded to above – make for miserable performance.

His research in cooperation with eFIG member Ambius has pointed to the fact that office decoration and empowerment of staff can lead to increased productivity by as much as 32%.

Did you know that Coca-Cola is now making plastic bottles containing 30% plant material?  Coca-Cola having already launched them in a number of countries from Brazil to Sweden, has also launched them here.

With the launch here in the UK this will keep Coca-Cola on-track with their predicted 5 million roll-out in 2011.

Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle gives them a lighter footprint; it was awarded as Best New Product – sustainable Packaging by the Edison Awards 2011 and as winner of Dupont’s Packaging Innovation award.

This story was reported by eFIG member Plantforce in their newsletter at the same time spreading the word about their own ‘light footprint’ using glass fibre containers which are made from recycled glass.

A series of releases from efig member Ambius has some cost-saving suggestions for clients.

As a result of the financial climate Ambius are explaining to potential clients including hotels and restaurants via the media how they could cut costs by replacing cut flowers with plants.

The saving say Ambius could be £1,000 per cut flower display.

They suggest replacing the fresh cut flowers  either with potted plants specifically focusing on the orchid , eFIG Plant of the Year this year.  Alternatively they suggest silk flowers.

This way the landscaper offers sensible advice retaining client confidence and importantly not losing this aspect of the account!

You can read their release here.

The greenhouse will be filled with fresh flowers and the hotel will be located at Aalsmeer the flower capital of The Netherlands if not the World!  The Flowerbed Hotel is still in the planning stages but will include 280 rooms set in this giant glasshouse.

The hotel will include all the usual features – guest rooms, a conference centre and spas as well as 6,800 square feet of flower beds!  These will be planted on every level of the hotel to create a public flower garden that guests can enjoy year round.

The lobby area will of course welcome guests who are not staying at the hotel as well as those who are.  The hotel will also feature a number of green walls which as eFIG knows are such a growing trend that they will soon become commonplace.  The green walls will provide fresh air and help to control temperatures – so these green walls will really be put to work not just a nod towards what we know the plants can do.

Roofs and terraces will include photovoltaic panels to collect solar energy for use throughout the hotel complex.  Renewable energy in the form of power supplied by Windmills will also be used.  Holland going back to its roots!

The Flower Hotel will be built soon as a complementary feature to the planned Bloomin’ Holland theme park.

eFIG has an article published in the latest edition of Green Build News.

Our article which we named ’Interior Landscaping as part of a sustainable build’, though the title has been subject to the editor’s right to change copy and is now called Flower Power!  The article speaks of the reasons why planting should be part of a sustainable build and quotes a plant’s CV.

We’ve got more coming up; look for articles in Holiday Parks Management Magazine September-October issue, ‘Keeping your greens inside and out in the best condition’ and an article in the next online magazine i-Plants (October edition) with the title of ‘Interior Landscaping in the UK’.

The out-going chairman, Tony Arnel who is also the Chair of Australia’s Green Building Council commented: “It’s been a great privilege to work with the World GBC’s network over the last three years.

“During this time, I’ve witnessed a fringe green movement become a mainstream industry. Governments have begun to wake up to the costs of climate change and recognise that buildings are truly the low hanging fruit.

“Technologies and practices which were once considered extraordinary are now business-as-usual. It is a great honour to pass the reigns of the WorldGBC into Rick’s steady hands.

“In the last decade, the global green building movement has recalibrated our vision for the world’s buildings and reminded us of why we create our buildings in the first place: for people.

He added: “Buildings – whether they are schools, hospitals, offices or homes, and whether at the design stage or during operation – should be based around the people within them; their purpose, their wellbeing.”

CNN reports on new research into ways to reduce city’s production of Carbon Dioxide by absorption

In a report from CNN Dr Rachel Armstrong tells of new research that will help buildings to ‘eat up’ carbon dioxide in the city air.  She says, “Over the next 40 years, ‘living’ buildings — biologically programmed to extract carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere — could fill our cities.”

Armstrtong works in synthetic biology, a cutting edge science looking at ‘the manufacture of life-like matter from synthesized chemicals’; protocells Armstrong calls these synthetic chemicals

“For instance, a protocell could be mixed with wall paint and programmed to produce limestone when exposed to carbon (dioxide) on the surface of a building,” she says. “Then you’ve got a paint that can actually eat carbon and change it into a shell-like substance.”

‘So, just as iron rusts when it comes into contact with oxygen and water, protocells can produce simple chemical reactions when they come into contact with carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules, turning the CO2 into calcium carbonate, or limestone, which stops the greenhouse gas from rising up into the ozone layer.’

Architect Richard Hyams confirms that ‘there is a burden on cities to reduce their vast carbon footprint intensities the market will look to more radical solutions.’  His graphic of how London might look suggests a much more natural approach than Armstrong’s.  Hi buildings and roofs are well planted with vegetation literally acting as the lungs of the city to clean the air.

We’re pleased to see there is a small change towards this ability that plants and trees have to green our cities and make them cleaner places.

Read the full report here.

Award winning Garden Designer Andrew Fisher Tomlin and member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, who gave a seminar at The Landscape Show earlier this year has some advice about the right plant, right place.

In an ezine article he has advice about which plants prefer which conditions indoors.  For instance orchids, Ficus and Kentia palms do well in cool, draughty hallways, he suggests. Whilst Yuccas, Crassula and Peace Lilies fair well in warm living rooms.

For more advice on the right plant for the right place see eFIG’s own guide.

eFIG Chairman and Ambius International Technical Director, Kenneth Freeman has written an engaging article for Personnel Zone.

Expanding the empowerment and enrichment theory, Kenneth also defines well-being as explained by psychologist Martin Seligman.  In his definition there is no mention of physical health but as Kenneth points out physical well-being is likely to be affected by positive emotion, one of Seligman’s five classifications.

Kenneth also cites Richard Louv’s description ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ i.e. our lack of contact with nature and how nature can assist a healing regime.  Of course Kenneth goes onto link this to Dr Craig Knight’s study about enriched workplaces, empowerment of the building’s occupiers and of course plants.

It’s well worth a few minutes of your time to read.