A presentation delivered this week at the TED 2009 conference demonstrates how you can “grow” fresh air indoors with just three varieties of plants. The discovery was the result of 15 years of testing at Paharpur Business Centre and Software Technology Incubator Park (PBC™ - STIP) in New Delhi, India, an eco- friendly oasis for businesses avoiding polluted air. The research showed that there’s a 42% probability of increasing blood oxygen by 1% if one is inside the building for 10 hours, boosting worker productivity by 20%. They were also able to reduce the fresh air supplied to the building and still meet industry standards for healthy indoor air, netting a reduction of energy costs by greater than 15
%.Pleased with the results, the consortium is planning on replicating the concept with over 60,000 of these plants in GreenSpaces, a 1.75 million square feet LEED© certified ‘Super’ Platinum Green Building and Technology Park, just outside of Delhi.
Also, if you're interested in learning more, there's a presentation that expands on the concept, naming plant species, the number of plants needed, etc. While it's obviously very cool that you can boost worker health and productivity with these plants (or lack of productivity if, like many of us, procrastination is your drug of choice in the office...what?!?! Who said that? Not me), I'm personally more interested in the 15% reduction in energy costs, and by energy costs, I'm going to assume he also means energy use. Sorry, I don't have time for due diligence on this one. Did you know that buildings consume 40% of the world's energy? If we could all convince our employers to install an indoor jungle in our offices, we could have a relatively significant impact on the world's energy consumption...a hypothetical 6% reduction in energy use worldwide. Obviously, not everyone is going to sign on for this new idea (and heck, it may be bunk), but it's still food for thought.
Maybe I'll stop by my local nursery on my way home...
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