In Tencent’s Headquarters Campus, egrets manage waste and mangroves hold back the sea. This is what happens when you design a workplace in tune with nature.

Imagine showing up to work and discovering you have thousands of new colleagues – except they don’t use elevators, prefer meetings outdoors, and commute by flying.

Welcome to Tencent's Headquarters Campus in Shenzhen. More than an office campus, it’s a shared environment where people and wildlife are part of the same system – not just neighbors, but coworkers.

Nature Gets a Job Title

Framing wildlife as coworkers is not only playful, it helps us understand the importance of ecosystems.

The egrets in the mudflats? Forage across the tidal flats and leave a zero carbon footprint. The mangroves? They’re facilities – a living seawall that stabilizes land, buffers wind and water, and provides food and shelter.

This isn’t decoration. It’s infrastructure that happens to have a heartbeat.

Designed Like a Product, Built Like an Ecosystem

None of this happened by accident. The team applied product thinking and user experience design to conservation: observe users (birds), identify their pain points (stressful flight paths), test small changes (adjust walking trails), and improve over time.

Guided by biodiversity experts, they watched how wildlife actually used the space. Dead branches stayed for nesting material. Wetlands were connected into corridors for reptiles and crabs. Pollinator gardens became refueling stations for bees and butterflies.

Each intervention was intentional and designed to be observed before being expanded.

When Data Has Wings

Over time, the results showed up in the numbers – more nests, more migratory species, stronger biodiversity indicators. But the real change was behavioral. Animals and humans moved naturally on the island with less friction because the ecosystem design worked.

Today, Tencent Headquarters Campus runs as a shared workplace: thousands of human employees, countless feathered ones, all functioning side by side. The environment supports all who rely on it.