Work, heatwave and health: "plants are calming", according to Jacques Tassin

Plants are making a comeback in urban spaces and in businesses, under the combined effect of sanitary imperatives and high temperatures, and can improve the quality of work, believes essayist and ecologist Jacques Tassin.

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The plant in its pot, forgotten and withered on a corner of the desk, has long disappeared from workspaces. For Jacques Tassin, researcher from CIRAD (Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development) and author of “ For an ecology of the sensitive ” (Odile Jacob, 2020), this is explained by the fact that “ the managers have all given in to a form of poorly understood Taylorism, considered under very mechanistic contours ”.

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" If plants are now regaining possession of offices, it is because we know that this makes it possible, by alleviating stress, to gain in efficiency ". From now on " we can, fortunately, reconcile a utilitarian approach and promote the integration of plants into work spaces ".

From a health standpoint, there is little risk " in harboring plants ". Health " can even be improved, at least preserved if we refer, for example, to the climatic role of plants in urban spaces ", underlines Jacques Tassin.

"The vegetable soothes"

At the office, “ plants are soothing. It does not move, solicits our senses without monopolizing them, what psychologists sometimes designate by the term "gentle attention". He is a living, reassuring presence within an excessively abiotic space ”, that is to say where life is impossible. " It therefore increases our ability to concentrate, and therefore memorize ."

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A greener work environment " reduces our stress, which has been precisely measured by doctors, who then observe a drop in blood pressure, heart rate and the secretion of cortisol, a stress hormone precisely ", fact it worth.

Finally, “ it is more and more established that plants promote social contact and reduce our outbursts of violence. Within a workspace, it is a type of layout that is very easy to set up, but here again, largely underestimated and undervalued , ”he believes.

At the end of the day, “ The Plant Company provides an answer to our deepest and most essential needs. Needs that persist, and no doubt even get worse, when we are locked in an office ”.