PRESS RELEASE

As the festive lights are packed away and the Christmas tree leaves the building, offices and workspaces across the country are often left looking stark, grey, and empty. To combat the "January Blues" and the visual void left by holiday decorations, plants@work is urging businesses to adopt a new motto for 2026: "Christmas Tree Out, Houseplant In."

This report synthesises 2 research papers from Lund University, the University of Zurich, and Loughborough University, revealing a critical disconnect between human biology and the modern environment. These studies highlight a dual crisis: our bodies are failing in urban settings, and our minds are increasingly rejecting the very nature built to sustain us.

The UK Government has released its Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) 2025 on 1 December. At first glance, this strategy for the great outdoors heavily focuses on halting species decline, restoring river health, and expanding forestry across the nation. However, the core principles of this ambitious government roadmap—sustainability, biosecurity, and the explicit link between nature and human wellbeing—do not stop at the building’s threshold. Though the interior environment is largely unaddressed in the plan’s specific targets, its underlying themes may create a mandate for the interior landscaping sector, translating broad environmental goals into specific commercial opportunities.