Trees beware — technology is after your job, too. A German company, Green City Solutions, looked at the unique challenges of city living and decided that a scaled solution to clean air in cramped urban spaces was the solution. The result? They started building trees.

Many cities around the world are waking up to the threats posed by the climate crisis. Rising sea levels, pollution, and warming can have dire implications for infrastructure and citizens under the care of city authorities. London has tackled the problem by installing City Trees, a human-made structure that filters CO2 from the air. The towers are filled with special moss cultures with technology that records, analyzes, and controls environmental performance in real-time.

The moss absorbs nitrogen oxides and produces oxygen. Independent energy systems allow them to operate year-round, rain or shine, and AI collects data that informs further greening solutions. Each tower has the air-cleaning ability of 275 trees, making them an ideal choice for crowded cities with limited public space. Green City Solutions was founded by four friends who saw firsthand, during travels across Asia and southern Europe, the negative consequences of polluted air and the massive build-up of heat in metropolitan regions. It triggered a search for an ecological and economical solution for this global problem.

“Our team consists of people from various disciplines and of different nationalities,” says managing director and co-founder Peter Sänger. “We appreciate this diversity of cultures and ways of thinking because our market is the world. Our thinking and actions have a global character, and we want our work to change something — not just for a moment, but forever.”