'Working as a gardener, but proving that clients can make money from it' |
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Blooming Buildings: the first Dutch green service provider with B Corp certification
Tanja van der Knoop is the CEO of the Amsterdam-based company Blooming Buildings and takes center stage in this interview. For several reasons, she is a unique figure among green CEOs. She is a woman—specifically, only the second female green CEO I have interviewed in ten years. Additionally, she stands out due to her background in private equity and consultancy, her presentation style, and her client base, which she serves with a team of 16 employees.
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Tanja van der Knoop welcomes me at Baxter Building in the heart of Amsterdam, just a stone's throw from Waterlooplein. Baxter Building is a multi-tenant office building, but one of the highest caliber. In 2018, Van der Knoop was given the opportunity to design and install a facade border for this building through the Green City Buzz Foundation, with which she was still affiliated at the time. It is certainly not the best time of year to admire the facade border, and as we step outside to take a photo, dusk is already setting in. However, it is clear that the border has developed well over the past growing season.
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Van der Knoop uses the Baxter Building facade garden as a demonstration garden. In the Jordaan, where the Blooming Buildings team is based, there is no space for one.
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Elegant lady
You wouldn't immediately take Van der Knoop for the CEO of a landscaping or green service company. With her silk scarf and impeccable appearance, she looks more like an elegant lady from Het Gooi or a lawyer from the Zuidas. That association is not entirely misplaced. Van der Knoop has no background in the green sector but previously worked as a consultant in corporate acquisitions. Greenery was originally a hobby, but one that got quite out of hand.
Van der Knoop: 'My first garden was 1,500 square meters in Diessen, Brabant, which I maintained together with my husband. When work required us to move closer to the Randstad, we bought a house in Amersfoort with a 3-hectare garden, which we transformed into something beautiful. When my husband became ill, we had to part with it in 2017. I then moved to Amsterdam to apply my knowledge of greenery and gardening to urban projects. My first project was the greening of Reguliersdwarsstraat, which I did entirely on my own initiative and pro bono.' Reflecting, she adds: 'I should have gone back to my old profession then, but I felt compelled to continue on this green path. With the help of a donation from an institutional investor's foundation, I established the Green City Buzz Foundation.'
Ambition
Van der Knoop explains: 'With the Reguliersdwarsstraat project, my ambition was to prove that successful urban greening is possible and that it adds value. All stakeholders—entrepreneurs, residents, office users, property owners, and the municipality—were more than satisfied. A year later, within one month, three companies (an architecture firm, a hotel, and a multi-tenant office building) approached us to help with their greening projects. My board of trustees stated that this was against the foundation's objectives. Almost reluctantly, Blooming Buildings was then born, which now has over 16 employees.'
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'We want to show that greenery is not an expense but an investment'
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Passion for plants
Van der Knoop: 'Our team shares three things in common: we all love plants, we are perfectionists, and we all want to make an impact.' This might suggest that she is not business-minded, but that is far from the case. During the interview, she repeatedly states the mantra: 'We want to prove that greening cities can generate value for clients. We want to show that greenery is not an expense but an investment.'
Real estate investors
As I walk through her projects with her, it quickly becomes clear that she focuses on a very specific group of clients. These are often large real estate investors looking to green both the interior and exterior of their properties. The exterior is particularly complex since it often involves borders or facade gardens located on municipal land. However, according to Van der Knoop, governments understand that this is a win-win situation. The real estate investor gains a beautifully greened building, increasing the property's value and its attractiveness to tenants, while the municipality benefits from a well-maintained public space. A key aspect is that Blooming Buildings only takes on projects where they can also handle maintenance. 'We design borders with larger plants so they look mature immediately. We don't hoe but manually remove weeds,' she explains. Hence her statement: 'We are landscapers who work like gardeners.'
Tile removal
When discussing facade gardens, the term 'tile removal' inevitably comes up. While Van der Knoop finds it a sympathetic initiative, she believes it lacks a professional approach. 'When we create a border, we remove soil up to at least 50 cm below ground level and refill it with specially blended soil containing effective microorganisms.' She calls this approach 'from advice to activation.' Unlike traditional maintenance teams that visit periodically, Blooming Buildings employs gardeners who live nearby and perform regular, often weekly, upkeep. 'Our gardener doesn't carry a hoe but always has a Felco 2 pruner and a Sneeboer planting trowel at hand.'
She continues: 'Municipalities have clear policies for private facade gardens, but for those around commercial buildings, such policies are lacking—this is where Blooming Buildings steps in.'
B Corp
The reason for this interview is not Van der Knoop's success in landscaping but the announcement of Blooming Buildings' B Corp certification. B Corp is a leading international certification for companies that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. Other certified companies include Tony's Chocolonely, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry's, and Triodos Bank. Until now, no Dutch green service providers had received this certification, except for the Danish landscaping company OKNygaard, part of idverde.
Sustainability is key to achieving B Corp certification. For Blooming Buildings, this means working almost entirely peat-free. 'I used to think it wasn't a big deal, but now I realize peat is no longer viable,' says Van der Knoop. Suppliers were also interviewed to verify the sustainability of their products, particularly Rijnbeek Perennials for plants.
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