Sustaining all life on Earth

The world counts millions of species of flowers, plants and animals. A wealth we are about to enjoy probably to its maximum with Spring knocking on our doors – if you are in the Northern hemisphere this time of the year. Unfortunately, the forecast for the longer term may look cloudier.

Unused land, which is one precondition for preserving ecosystems and biodiversity, will become only scarcer due to the fact that the world population is growing towards 10 billion people in 2050. Obviously, the main challenge will be how to feed everyone a healthy diet while staying within planetary boundaries.

The high tech glasshouse industry is ready to pick up the challenge. It is on pole position for growing vegetables in the most sustainable way. Our greenhouses are a mini ecosystem, where bumble bees fly around for pollination and where circular growing is the standard.

The latter is what we do at Grodan: giving land back to nature. We use volcanic rock for our substrates on which vegetables are grown. Volcanic rock reserves are inexhaustible but nevertheless we offer recycling solutions to more than 90% of our customers in Europe. After closing a quarry from where we extracted the rocks, we plant trees and leave it behind in a better shape than we found it.