Surprise: This is today’s most In-demand work perk

Run clubs and yoga classes, game rooms and squash courts, free lattes and bottomless snack baskets. In the competition to attract and retain top talent, Big Tech offered all this and more as office perks. But in the post-Covid workplace of hybrid schedules and optional commutes, what many workers (especially Gen Z-ers) most crave is a dose of nature.

Over the last 15 years, there’s been a dramatic shift toward incorporating greenery in the workplace. Studies show that when natural elements are introduced, good things happen for workers. According to a recent report from Robertson Cooper, a workplace wellbeing consulting group, workers in offices with access to green spaces are 6% more productive, 15% more creative, and report a 15% higher level of wellbeing. (It might also improve morale at a time when annual raises hover around 2% and higher-ups are issuing return-to-office directives.)

Here, take a closer look at the offices that are winning at this green game.

Exterior photograph of Google's St. John’s Terminal office space in Manhattan, highlighting multi-level terraced brick balconies filled with vibrant rooftop gardens and greenery.

1. Google’s Biophilia in Action

Google’s new headquarters on the west side of Manhattan, St. John’s Terminal, opened in 2024 with a focus on biophilic design, which stems from the theory that environments with natural elements foster health and wellbeing. At Google, that means daylit workspaces as well as dozens of planted terraces and rooftop gardens.

“It's so great to be able to go outside, breathe some fresh air, and have a beautiful view of the Hudson River,” said a current Google sales executive working from the new building, who said he often takes meetings al fresco and lunches on the grassy lawns. “When you work in a big city like New York, it really feels like a luxury,” he added. “Every time I go out there I think, ‘Wow, I’m pretty lucky to work in such an environment.’”

2. Amazon’s Office Biosphere

Amazon took a different tack in Seattle, constructing three glass-enclosed biospheres beside its main headquarters, the largest of which is four stories tall and spans over half a city block. Inside the domed conservatories (officially called the Seattle Spheres) live over 40,000 plants, including a 4,000-square-foot green wall — a tropical oasis with enormous monsteras and birds-of-paradise, blooming orchids, lacy ferns and a 55-foot Ficus tree named Rubi. Nestled amid the flora, benches and small seating areas provide workspaces for Amazon employees that feel miles away from a fluorescent-lit cubicle.

Interior photograph of Amazon’s Spheres in Seattle, featuring a massive, multi-story indoor tropical rainforest conservatory enclosed by iconic glass dome architecture.

3. Apple’s Supersized Corporate Gardens

Apple had more room to spread out in Cupertino, California, where 80% of the 360-acre Apple Park (as the new headquarters is called) is dedicated to green space planted with indigenous flora and drought-resistant trees. The campus, where 12,000 employees work in open-plan offices, consists of nine interconnected buildings that form a perfect circle around a 30-acre courtyard garden with orchards of apricot, apple, and olive trees; expansive lawns; and a circular pond.

Aerial photograph showing a wide top-down view of Apple Park in Cupertino, California, displaying the massive ring-shaped building surrounding a expansive central courtyard filled with native trees and pond features.

Photograph of a stone-paved walkway winding through a manicured outdoor garden landscape with dense green shrubs and trees on the Scotts Miracle-Gro headquarters campus in Marysville, Ohio. — May We Humblebrag for a Moment?

It’s not just tech companies that are rolling out the green carpet. At the corporate office of ScottsMiracle-Gro in Marysville, Ohio, we have acres of manicured fields surrounding our various buildings. Our lawns and floral displays are as on-point as you’d expect, given our mission, and employees are especially drawn to our lake with walking paths and leafy trees. In good weather, there’s no better place to take a meeting, take a call, or simply take a break. “Our campus is truly an oasis, says Becca Ghassab, Digital Project Coordinator, “Stepping outdoors for a moment is the ultimate way to recharge and reset my focus during the workday.”

4. England’s Green Dream

A brilliant example of adaptive reuse, Plant Basingstoke offers office space in a refurbished modernist building in south-central England that was once home to a paper manufacturer. From every floor of the six-story structure, which is known as the “hanging gardens of Basingstoke,” workers can access newly verdant terraced gardens after a complete renovation focused on sustainability and biophilic design.

Meandering pathways weave through the lush gardens planted with more than 80 new trees and over 20,000 plants, augmenting the flora that was already on site. And in the central courtyard, benches beside a reflecting pool offer space to work, socialize, or relax for visitors and employees alike, while also contributing to the natural biodiversity of the area.

Exterior photograph of the modern, dark-clad corporate headquarters building in South England, featuring green planted rooftops and surrounding gardens.

5. Etsy’s Urban Wonderland

At Etsy’s headquarters in a nondescript Brooklyn building sandwiched between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, bringing nature indoors was a top priority.

“Plants are absolutely essential to the design,” said Rebecca Bullene, founder of Greenery NYC, which designed, installed, and continues to maintain some 30,000 plants in the building. “There’s nowhere that you can go in that office space where you wouldn’t have a view of live plants, whether hanging from the ceiling or growing from the ground or on columns,” she said. And that’s in addition to five walls of large-scale vertical gardens watered by a sustainable rainwater harvesting and irrigation system.

As someone who daily thinks about how to best design a modern workplace, Bullene said the question she’s always asking is: “How do we create spaces where people want to be?” Increasingly, the answer for offices involves soil and plants.