Creating a green healthy office headquarters for Bolton Group, Milano
Welcome to episode 076 of the Green Healthy Places podcast in which we discuss the the of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and hospitality today.
I’m your host Matt Morley and in this episode I’m in Milan, Italy but the tables have been turned. This time around I’m on the other side of the microphone, answering the questions.
In front of me is Stefania Lorenzi from the marketing department of the Bolton Group.
This recording took place in their via Pirelli offices, close to the Central Station in Milan, where I’ve been working with their executive team and project architects on implementing a range of green, healthy office strategies over recent months.
About the Bolton Group
The Bolton Group is a family-owned, Italian multinational with over 11,000 employees in 60 different offices.
They are present in 150 countries with over 60 household brands in the portfolio, from products for the home, to food, adhesives, personal care and beauty care.
We discuss the basics of nature-inspired biophilic design, its relationship with sustainability, the benefits of a nature-infused indoor work environment and some tips on how to integrate a little biophilia into our daily routines at home.
This is just a 15-minute chat, nothing complicated but hopefully relevant as a basic primer on the key principles I’m working with when creating a green, healthy office building.
Thanks to the Bolton Group for sharing the audio, this is a company with a strong sustainability program and genuine interest in implementing a healthy building strategy at their company headquarters, so kudos to them!
Welcome to Bolton Beats, our corporate podcast and today i’m joined by special guess Matt Morley, our wellbeing and sustainability consultant. We are talking about how to integrate a green healthy approach to our workspaces.
https://www.boltongroup.net/en/
Q. Can you introduce yourself to our audience please Matt?
My name’s Matt Morley, i’m based in Barcelona, Spain but born in London and I studied here in Milan.
I began my career in real estate back in 2004 working with real estate developers and hotel groups, then i worked for a large development on the Adriatic Coast in-house for five years before setting up my own business Biofilico in 2018 combining my passions of sustainability and wellbeing with my real estate knowledge.
Launch of Biofilico
Biofilico offers biophilic design and wellness interior design services for the healthy workplace, residential developments and hotels.
Launch of Green Healthy Places
That led me to my second business Green Healthy Places launched in 2022 focused purely on advisory services around healthy interiors, green buildings, office building certifications and so on.
There I work with developers, landlords, and tenants but only in an advisory capacity while Biofilico takes on a more creative, design role.
So according to the project brief, I may be working with my interior designer or with my research assistant. In both cases though, we want to enhance productivity, promote health, incorporate natural elements, encourage creativity and reduce stress while having a positive impact on the environment.
There are projects such as this one for Bolton Group where the client does not want any creative design input at all, as there is already an interior architecture team engaged, so that allows me to focus purely on researching sustainable materials, recommending indoor air quality improvements, creating a healthy office space, how to integrate more biophilia and ways to encourage more healthy habits, such as regular movement while at work for example.
Both roles come from a similar place and similar values about the importance of nature, of a healthy indoor office environment and so on.
Q. You’re involved in the renovation project at our Bolton Group headquarters here in via Pirelli, Milano. How you are focusing on sustainability combined with mental and physical wellbeing?
In projects like this, i effectively have a toolbox of strategies to bring to a project, in this case we are working with biophilia, integrating plants as well as blue biophilia inspired by the sea, and the fishing industry, so we are personalizing the biophilia aspect to connect with the corporation’s business.
Then we’re doing a lot of work on the indoor air quality, part of that was based on the filtration system and filtration rates, as well as detailed analysis of all the materials of the furniture and flooring to check for any toxic or harmful substances to make sure that the refurbishment has minimal environmental impact and maximizing the quality of the indoor air.
Maybe it’s not as good as being up a mountain or in a forest but we can still get pretty close!
Healthy building certification - FITWEL
Finally, we are working on a healthy building certification that is going to provide structure and rigor to our work, giving us a clear set of objectives and helping to push us to achieve more to improve the quality of the indoor experience for staff working in the building.
We want to make this a healthy, nurturing, productive and uplifting space for the Bolton team to spend their work days in.
So that obviously connects with Human Resources objectives as well as sustainability, we combine elements of the two and have to collaborate with both teams.
Q: Can you explain more about what biophilic design means and its benefits for physical and mental health?
It takes its name from bio: nature + philia: love of, so love of or need for nature.
An academic theory emerged in the 1980s by a Harvard biologist named E.O.Wilson, he coined the concept that we have over 2 million years of evolutionary history in nature, entirely immersed in nature every day.
Only in the last 5000 years with agricultural revolution and the last 300 years with the industrial revolution, we have become an indoor species, utterly disconnected from nature when we move into the city centre.
It’s a mismatch of modernity, our generic history shows we’re an animal for life outside in nature, yet here we are living a very different existence all of a sudden.
Biophilic design aims to bridge these two worlds, bringing elements of nature back into our indoor environments to create spaces that are more connected visually to nature.
Q: What data exists to show the benefits of biophilia on employee health for example?
There have been plenty of studies including one i was involved in with the University of Essex research team into the benefits of a space loaded with Vitamin Nature.
We had over 100 respondents in that study spending 30-60 minutes in a space loaded with biophilia, plants, aromatherapy, birdsong on the sound system..
The results were very clear - it has a restorative effect on productivity and mental output, reduced stress and anxiety, and improved mood.
So if i can make someone feel even 10% better after 30 minutes in one of these spaces, that’s good for the building users and for the employer responsible for making it all happen. Both sides benefits basically.
Q: How do you choose the plants that go into an office, does it all depend on natural light?
If we work from the assumption that certain species can have a modest purifying effect on indoor air, then there are really only about 8-10 species available.
Essentially an air conditioned building anywhere in the world is going to have an indoor temperature of around 20-22 degrees centigrade, that doesn’t change but the availability of daylight and of local plant species do change.
air purifying plants
So we work with the NASA approved indoor air purifier species and then add in a sense of place with specific local species, as appropriate.
In this case, the architect defines the areas on the office floor plan where we could potentially create some biophilia, i then take that from a concept level to a more detailed description of the plants, light levels, pots, and so on.
Eventually this becomes part of a project brief for local plant suppliers to pitch for.
So it’s a collaborative process with a number of different teams involved before the plants make it into the building.
Q: Give us some tips for integrating biophilia into our homes and home office environments for flexible working?
I would encourage employees at Bolton to think beyond just indoor plants as part of their home or remote work environment but of course you can use them to decorate the workspace!
indirect representations of nature
Then there are indirect representations of nature, so while plants or even using vegetables on display in the kitchen work great, you can also think of large format landscapes on the walls, forest aromatherapy (pine, rosemary, mint), smart lighting that replicates natural light according to the time of day.
I’m trying to recreate the experience of being outside basically.
It’s like a health hack, it’s fine to use technology combined with natural materials like cork, wood, linen, stone as well as the best of what wellness tech is available.
So a combination of high tech and low tech in other words.
Q. Do you have any final comments or suggestions Matt?
Yes, I do!
The very fact that I’m here, as someone who is focused on the environmental impact of these Bolton offices as well as on the wellbeing of staff, is a very valuable step.
This is not happening everywhere but the Bolton Group have done it, reflecting the importance of wellbeing and sustainability for this company - it’s a very important step for a company of this size!
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