Transforming Workplaces with Square Mile Farms
Transforming Workplaces with Square Mile Farms
Square Mile Farms bring beautiful hydroponic Farms into workplaces, creating informal, hands-on experiences that help people reconnect with food, and has been proudly ESGmark® certified since 2024. We spoke to Patrick Dumas, Founder and CEO, who shares how his business helps clients create healthier, more engaging workplaces and create value through enhanced ESG credentials.
Patrick Dumas, Founder and CEO of Square Mile Farms
ESGmark®: Tell us about Square Mile Farms and your role in the business.
At Square Mile Farms we design, install and manage living Farmwalls that grow herbs and leafy greens inside commercial buildings in order to bring people together, spark conversation around sustainability, and reconnect employees with their food. Our clients span asset managers and landlords, facilities management firms, corporate occupiers, workplace design firms and architects, and food service operators.
When I founded the business, my mission was to bring more greenery into the city and to connect people with the food they eat, and that goal hasn’t changed. As CEO, my role is to make sure that question stays front and centre of everything we do. Our team works hard to keep improving on what a Farmwall installation can deliver in terms of wellbeing, community and sustainability.
ESGmark®: What sustainability priorities and trends are you seeing among your clients, and how are these shaping the conversations you're having with them?
More studies are showing that employees care about their employer's sustainability values. Our clients are ticking the important but hidden boxes, such as low-impact building systems, but they also want something visible. Our Farms are a striking feature that sparks conversations about food waste, sustainable sourcing and efficient growing, and the harvests, workshops and community outreach around them deepen that awareness.
That's where social value comes in. We empower people to be more sustainable by giving them something tangible to act on, raising awareness and influencing their consumption habits. Priorities are shifting from reporting and scorekeeping to real, visible and measurable change.
ESGmark®: Tell us about a metric or result from a client site that surprised you.
We hear from our clients that employees come into the office on harvest day and that people plan their week around it, which means we're helping to nudge the return to the office by giving people a reason to be there and to connect with colleagues.
And this carries on as well. Two or three years in at a lot of our sites, engagement is still very high, with queues of people forming for each harvest. The novelty hasn't worn off, because the Farms are constantly changing and there's always something new to pick, taste and talk about.
ESGmark®: There's a growing focus on bringing nature into workplaces and buildings. How can this go beyond the aesthetic to create real value for organisations?
It's easy to add a few plants to a reception area and call it biophilic design, but we believe real value comes when nature is integrated in a way that changes how a space functions. Edible biophilia is what organisations should be focusing on now, as it delivers far more than standard ornamental planting.
What we do is multi-sensory: it looks good, smells good and tastes good. And unlike decorative art or plants, it's interactive. Clients choose what we grow, watch it develop over three to four weeks, then harvest and start again. Workshops and educational activities around the Farms add to the experience. It's tangible and enriching, and it helps people engage with nature on a deeper level than they would sitting next to a few indoor plants.
ESGmark®: What role can food play in helping organisations engage their people and wider communities with sustainability?
Food is one of the most powerful tools for sustainability engagement because it's universal. It works for people of all ages and cultures, which makes it very inclusive. When people can see herbs and leafy greens growing a few metres from where they eat them, sustainability becomes tangible and immediate. They see the benefits of sustainable sourcing and low food waste. This is particularly true for our food service clients, who use the produce from our Farms in their kitchens, serving salads and pizzas made with ingredients grown right where they are eaten.
There's also a lot to teach. Modern hydroponic growing can be far better for the environment, helping to mitigate issues such as pesticide use, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, water use and climate resilience. It also opens up conversations about STEM topics, from specialist LEDs and IoT devices to plant biology.
ESGmark®: Looking ahead, what do you think the future of sustainable workplaces looks like, and how can organisations use ESG to create value for their people, their communities and their business?
I think the future of the sustainable workplace is one where sustainability and experience are thought about together. A building that's good for the planet is also good for the people in it, so the organisations that will get the most value out of ESG over the next few years are the ones that bring it into the design brief. If they design spaces that improve daily life for employees, and that give something back to the communities around them, they'll also create spaces that perform better commercially. And of course there's quite a lot of data on the rent premium for sustainably rated buildings.
At Square Mile Farms, we'll keep helping people create workplaces where sustainability is something employees can see, touch and gather around. Every Farm we install brings us one step closer to our vision of urban farms becoming commonplace in big city buildings and woven into everyday life. We’d like to see workplaces be not only greener but healthier and more sustainable, and collectively grow a significant amount of food.
About ESGmark®:
ESGmark® is the community for people and organisations who care about the planet and society. We support organisations to credibly demonstrate and improve their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) credentials. The ESGmark® Certification is a symbol of trust and distinction which allows consumers to identify organisations who believe in and act to deliver a fairer, more sustainable future.
Through our ESG Spotlight Q&A series, ESGmark® Certified organisations share their approach to responsible business practices and how they create positive impact for the environment, their clients, employees, and communities. Discover more Q&As here.