Eden Project built a plant-covered emergency exit sign to prescribe 17 minutes of nature

For its 25th anniversary, the Eden Project charity launched Greentime17, a push to make 17 minutes in nature a day as routine as five-a-day or 10,000 steps — the public face of a three-year, multi-partner programme backed by the National Lottery Climate Action Fund, the Ashken Family Foundation and the Bupa Foundation.

ARK built the six-by-three-metre 'Emergency Exit to Nature' with Creative Giants Art Ltd from reclaimed timber and living plants, unveiled at Canary Wharf and backed by 48-sheet and six-sheet OOH, digital screens and an animated social series of commuters walking head-down into phones until the scene resolves green. After 10 September the plants were gifted to the public or rehomed at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

The sign stopped commuters at Canary Wharf until 10 September 2026, after which its plants were rehomed; no campaign metrics were reported — the measure was getting 'greentime' spoken of like fitness benchmarks.

ARK Agency marked the Eden Project's 25th anniversary with Greentime17, a UK-wide campaign that reframes the charity's call to spend time outdoors as a literal emergency exit built from plants. The centrepiece, unveiled at Canary Wharf, is a six-by-three-metre 'Emergency Exit to Nature' sign: the fire-exit pictogram's running man now heads for a cluster of trees, dramatising research that 52% of UK adults spend less than two hours a week in nature.

Creative partner Edward Usher said the running figure was 'designed to be completely unequivocal', but its ubiquity means it is ignored — 'just like the natural world' — so in an environmental crisis and a mental health emergency it was right to 'twist it into something you can't just ignore.' The installation anchors 48-sheet and six-sheet OOH, digital screens and an animated social series showing lines of commuters walking head-down into phones, resolving into the line 'Swap screen time for Greentime'.

Greentime17 asks Britain to make 17 minutes a day in nature as routine as five-a-day or 10,000 steps, fronting the three-year 'Nature: Connections and Recovery' programme backed by the National Lottery Climate Action Fund, the Ashken Family Foundation and the Bupa Foundation. CEO Andy Jasper pitched the artwork as the way to stop people in their tracks; ARK, appointed after a competitive pitch alongside clients like loveholidays, Huel and Krispy Kreme, built the sign with Creative Giants Art Ltd from reclaimed timber and drought-tolerant plants.

The pictogram is designed to be obeyed without thought; making it literal — a door into living plants — converts ignored signage into a public-health instruction.

The 52% statistic gives the metaphor a factual spine: this is presented as an emergency, so an emergency sign is the honest form.

The exit's promise is kept, not just performed — the installation's plants were gifted or rehomed rather than skipped.

Borrow the most-ignored visual language in the room — the exit sign everyone stops seeing — and its ubiquity becomes the reason people finally look.

The installation ran at Canary Wharf until 10 September 2026, when its plants were gifted to the public or rehomed at the Eden Project in Cornwall; the wider Greentime17 OOH and social campaign continued under the three-year Nature: Connections and Recovery programme.