Through its cultural incubator Therme Art, Therme Group has an ongoing global partnership with SUGi and its rewilding project.
Launched in 2019 by Elise Van Middelem, SUGi is the activation and culture hub of The Rewilding Generation, partnering with schools, venture capitalists among others to build biodiversity in cities and waterways around the world. Therme Group and SUGi are partnering to develop a programme of forest planting to restore the biodiversity in its facility locations, helping bridge the gap between contemporary urban life, nature with the aim of improving planetary and human wellbeing.
SUGi pioneers the use of the Miyawaki Method, a dense form of planting which counters the trend towards monoculture to exacerbate the restoration of biodiversity in native forests. Its pocket forests bring ‘pockets’ of biodiversity to even the most densely populated urban areas. In 2020, SUGi was chosen as one of the first cohort of champions and innovators as part of the World Economic Forum’s 1t.org, the historic platform set up to conserve, restore and grow one trillion trees by 2030.
The SUGi pocket forest design in Bloomfield Park, Glasgow.
On the occasion of COP26 in Glasgow, Therme Group and SUGi planted 1400 native Scottish trees in Glasgow's Broomfield Park. Compared to the grass meadow in Broomfield Park, the biodiversity rate in the forest will be 100 times higher and is predicted to absorb 720 kg of carbon dioxide annually whilst releasing 530 kg of oxygen at the beginning of its third year. The forest will have captured a total of 3600 kg of carbon dioxide in 10 years, and is anticipated to increase once the forest has matured.
Children from the neighbouring school were invited to plant trees as they will be the ones to watch the forest grow and develop over the next 10-20 years