Impact One

We often think health lives in hospitals or in our DNA 🧬

But evidence increasingly points to something else — the environments we design around people every day 🌳

📈According to the Global Wellness Institute:
• 80–90% of health outcomes are shaped by environmental and lifestyle factors
• 1 in 6 premature deaths is linked to environmental pollution
• 70% of cardiovascular disease cases are tied to modifiable risks

Streets influence movement.
Air influences inflammation.
Soil and biodiversity influence microbial exposure.
Shade influences heat stress.
Nature influences stress levels.

The built environment is not neutral. It interacts with biology daily.

When ecosystems degrade, the effects show up in bodies. When they function, health follows.

Wellness is not an add-on. It is infrastructure — embedded in water, canopy, materials, mobility, and long-term stewardship.

Source: Global Wellness Institute (2025), Build Well to Live Well: The Future

As the year comes to an end, this season reminds us of the importance of togetherness.

Time spent with family and those close to us — around shared meals, conversations, and simple moments of presence — quietly shapes how we connect and care for one another.

Often unnoticed as they unfold, these moments ground us and create a sense of continuity that carries forward.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a joyful holiday season.

Small actions can reshape whole cities.

Smarter transport, greener corridors and access to natural light all create ripples that make urban life healthier and more connected.

We are losing our connection to nature — fast.
More than 60% in just 200 years.

That loss isn’t abstract.
It shows up in higher stress, weaker immunity, rising anxiety, and cities that no longer support human health.

The issue isn’t awareness.
It’s design.

🌿 So how do we rebuild the connection?
→ Use culture and storytelling to reshape how we relate to nature
→ Bring nature back as a core part of our cities, not an afterthought
→ Create early, lasting connections to nature from childhood

Reconnecting with nature isn’t about going backwards.
It’s about designing a healthier, more liveable future.

Explore the insights on our website: impact.one/news

Healthy cities don’t begin with buildings. They begin with soil.

Under every street, park and neighbourhood is a living system that regulates water, temperature, biodiversity, food production and even aspects of human health. When we seal or degrade this layer, cities lose the basic functions that make them liveable: cooling, filtration, nutrient cycling, root growth, microbial life.

Today, on , we’re highlighting what this often-invisible infrastructure provides. The data in this carousel shows the scale of the challenge, and why soil health needs to be treated as a core part of urban performance, not a decorative element around it.

Living soils reduce heat, absorb rainfall, protect infrastructure, support safe urban agriculture and help cities turn waste into long-term environmental value. They are the difference between landscapes that fail under pressure and landscapes that regenerate.

If cities want to stay resilient in a warming world, the groundwork starts literally in the ground. Healthy soils make healthy cities.

We now spend 14% less time in public spaces than we used to. We’re walking faster, rushing from A to B and we’re reducing our chances for spontaneous connection.

But there’s good news: when urban spaces include trees, water, shade, and seating, people naturally stay longer. Adding natural components to shared spaces in cities makes them look and feel better.

Providing city residents with calmer, greener streets and plazas is an important way to help people want pause, connect and build community.

Most cities still behave as if human health and ecological health are separate files.

But the data keeps pointing to the same pattern:

- Where soil is alive, air is cleaner.
- Where tree canopies are dense, heat and stress fall.
- Where people can reach nature daily, mental and physical health improve.

Let’s focus on that pattern.

What if our cities were designed to help children learn from nature?

Children today spend just minutes outdoors, and over seven hours on screens.

Modern cities prioritise efficiency over exploration, leaving little room for imagination and movement.

Nature is the best teacher. Parks and green spaces that invite play do more than entertain, they strengthen health, creativity, and empathy. Shaded trees, varied terrain, and natural materials turn parks into living classrooms where children discover the world and their place in it.

Mosses are nature’s small but mighty sponges.

🌿 They quietly clean the air and capture carbon.

🌿 They absorb water from the air, trapping fine particles that pollute cities, while storing vast amounts of carbon in the soil below.

Researchers estimate that moss-covered areas store 6.43 billion tonnes more carbon than bare soil. 

On rooftops and city walls, moss is low-cost, light-weight, low-maintenance, and capable of cleaning our air while greening our environment.

Could moss walls and roofs be one of the most simple but effective green city solutions?

Source: Nature Geoscience, The global contribution of soil mosses to ecosystem services, 2023

In dense urban areas, a patch of green can change everything.

In places where balconies are rare and green space is scarce, Community gardens are giving people a chance to reconnect with nature, food, and each other.

🥕 They shorten food chains, reconnecting people with what they eat and where it comes from.
💬 They rebuild trust between neighbours and create a shared sense of belonging.
🐝 They give pollinators a refuge and help cities breathe, cool and regenerate.

What begins as a small act of gardening becomes a quiet form of urban resilience — proof that healthy cities start from the ground up.

🌱 Where’s your nearest community garden?