Vertical plant production as a public exhibit at Paignton Zoo

Paignton Zoo has undertaken a novel project together with a multinational plant technology group to build Europe’s first vertical growing facility. The project represents the first zoo-based sustainable growing laboratory. It is an example of how zoos and botanic gardens can demonstrate sustainability to their visitors, through reducing their own impacts on the environment and by using plant-based solutions to offset the impact of anthropogenic global change on biodiversity. Urban agriculture and High Density Vertical Growing technology should be seen as a valuable element that can help to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, most specifically goal number one: to end poverty and hunger, and goal number seven: to ensure environmental sustainability by taking pressure off habitats to service unsustainable cities through agricultural domestication or otherwise unsustainable land use.