“We are on the verge of the green real estate revolution”
Amsterdam, March 10, 2025 – Blooming Buildings, a certified B Corp that greens urban areas, has attracted entrepreneur Bas Tax (co-founder of Plat4mation) to help accelerate its growth and expand its impact. The company’s ambitions align seamlessly with those of Tax, who is taking his first serious step as an impact investor: “Blooming Buildings aims to be a catalyst for global urban greening. I’m eager to support that mission.”
Blooming Buildings uses planting to make existing buildings and new developments more attractive, climate-resilient, and healthier. Their unique approach promotes biodiversity, prevents heat stress, and encourages social interaction.
Tanja van der Knoop, founder of Blooming Buildings: “People and places quite literally flourish through greenery. That’s what drives us. But what also resonates with our clients: greenery delivers returns. Our planting strategies reduce vacancy rates and increase the financial value of real estate.”
An increasing number of organizations, both commercial and public, are recognizing the effectiveness of Blooming Buildings’ approach, especially since the tightening of the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) on January 1, 2025.
Van der Knoop: “These guidelines encourage companies to generate both social and ecological impact. Planting enables impact on both fronts. Because we can directly link that impact to financial value creation, we are becoming increasingly attractive to institutional investors—who often deal with complex challenges and broad reporting requirements.”
It was Blooming Buildings’ holistic vision of greening that appealed to impact investor Bas Tax. As co-founder of IT consultancy Plat4mation, Tax sold part of his shares and now aims to invest the proceeds into organizations that contribute to a better climate and more livable society.
Tax: “Blooming Buildings dares to think big. They see how rapidly our world is hardening with concrete, and how biodiversity is disappearing. They have a proven approach to driving real change. But their ambitions go further: by 2035, they want every street in every city to have some form of greenery. And I want to help them get there.”
Idealistic and Commercial
Van der Knoop explains the underlying idea: “As urbanization increases, more and more people become disconnected from nature. And that’s a bad thing. The presence of greenery makes you healthier both physically and mentally. Contact with nature is a basic human need and should be considered a fundamental right.”
Unlike many greening initiatives, Blooming Buildings is not only idealistic but also commercial. Tax: “What’s unique about Blooming Buildings is that they focus on the financial returns of their approach. They are impact-driven, but they understand that organizations have other priorities too. They use that to create even greater impact.”
What this means in practice can be seen in the projects the urban greening specialists have realized for clients such as Achmea, real estate investor Jamestown, and ProRail. For the latter, Blooming Buildings developed the inner courtyard of the De Inktpot headquarters in Utrecht. Tax: “You really have to visit it to experience what greenery can do for a concrete environment. It’s overwhelming. Even in the middle of winter, life is buzzing.”
Over the next five years, Blooming Buildings aims to expand the green footprint of urban nature, both literally and figuratively. Van der Knoop: “In every possible way, we want to inspire organizations worldwide to invest in striking greenery. It’s now or never. We are on the brink of a green real estate revolution, and we want to be the catalyst. We are incredibly happy that Bas believes in our mission and is helping us make it happen.”
