Why Aren’t Green Roofs Everywhere???

There can be little doubt that investment in green roofing infrastructure is increasing, in large part due to their wide-ranging benefits, including savings on energy costs, mitigating the risk from floods, creating habitats for urban wildlife, tackling air pollution and urban heat, and even producing food.

A Recent Report

“A recent report in the U.K. suggested that the green roof market there is expanding at a rate of 17% each year. The world’s largest rooftop farm will open in Paris in 2020, following similar schemes in New York City and Chicago. Stuttgart, in Germany, is thought of as “the green roof capital of Europe,” while Singapore is even installing green roofs on buses

These increasingly radical urban designs can help cities adapt to the monumental challenges they face, such as access to resources and a lack of green space due to development. But buy-in from city authorities, businesses, and other institutions are crucial to ensuring their success—as is research investigating different options to suit the variety of rooftop spaces found in cities.”

For more on this report, please click here.

Important Benefits

With rainfall amounts on the rise globally, it’s a crucial time to examine how cities can retrofit their existing building infrastructure to alleviate flood damage and deal with stormwater in a more sustainable manner.

Green infrastructure technologies, such as permeable pavements, bioswales, cisterns and green roofs, are now commonly recommended to confront extreme weather events.

Effective Stormwater Management

Green roofs are a green infrastructure (GI) option that can be applied to virtually any rooftop given weight load capacity. The benefits of green roofs extend far beyond their obvious aesthetic appeal.

A study done by University of Toronto civil engineer Jenny Hill and co-researchers at the school’s Green Roof Innovation Testing Lab (GRIT Lab) showed that green roofs have the capacity to capture an average of 70 per cent of rainfall over a given time, relieving underground storm-water systems and releasing the rainwater back into the atmosphere.

For more on this investigation in The Conversation, please click here.

Wallbarn can advise and assist on all aspects of scoping, installing and maintaining your green roof project.

Just pick up the phone, ask a question using the live chat facility on this site or send us an email at info@wallbarn.com and we’ll get back to you next working day at the latest.