The green is gaining ground!

What if the business district rhymed with vegetation? Developing the place of nature in the city is the ambitious goal of Paris La Défense, and it's quite a program!

Up to the challenge

Faced with the ecological emergency and the climate challenge, the priority is to protect and restore biodiversity. In addition to decarbonizing public space, strengthening the place of nature in the city and increasing the proportion of vegetation will help reduce heat islands and preserve the thermal comfort of users. Tree planting, urban parks, shared gardens and the greening of high-rise buildings are all concrete initiatives that, every day, help nature gain ground.

Since 2019, nearly 10,600 m² of green spaces have been added to the landscape of Paris La Défense, bringing the total area of green public spaces to 37.35 ha. 35% of the district's pedestrian space is now planted. Enough to deconstruct the clichés about the omnipresence of concrete! You may be surprised, but Paris La Défense, far from being just a concrete district, is today:

131 ha of vegetated areas on 566 ha, of which 37.35 ha are public;
7 parks and 3 shared gardens;
More than 1000 trees, 40 different species;
124 wild animal species.

In the coming years, Paris La Défense will intensify this approach with the planting of trees, the creation of new urban parks, shared gardens and the greening of roofs and terraces in new real estate programs. In the business district, nature is gaining ground every day!

Our ambitions

In 2021, Paris La Défense adopted a "raison d'être", a new strategic direction setting the objective of becoming the first post-carbon business district in the world and halving the territory's greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

In this context, the challenge of preserving biodiversity is a major issue today. The urban environment of Paris La Défense being specific, biodiversity is approached differently than in a natural territory. It is a question of taking an interest in biodiversity in its entirety and in the organization of living organisms in these constrained spaces. In order to concretize the ecological ambitions of Paris La Défense, a Nature en Ville action plan has been drawn up, taking into account the technical constraints of the district, following two major objectives:

To give a significant place to nature in all the spaces of the Paris La Défense territory: the esplanade, the parks, the forecourts and squares, the cemeteries, the edges of the roads, the buildings... ;
Provide users with daily well-being by improving the comfort of public spaces (refreshed or shaded spaces, visual or acoustic filters), and by creating spaces for strolling or resting.

To achieve this, Paris La Défense has built its strategy around 5 actions:

Nature in the city