Green Roofs

Green Roofs

Green roofs, or vegetated roofs, or living roofs are systems that are essentially roofs with vegetation placed upon them in a way to provide benefits. The installation of a green roof may be for various reasons and will almost always provide a suite of additional benefits including;

Benefits include;

General environmental, economic and social benefits
Climate change adaptation & mitigation
Flood mitigation
Water Quality improvements
Health and well being
Biodiversity
Air quality improvements
Urban heat island effect reduction
Building thermal efficiency
Reduced whole life cost
Noise reduction

Roofs can take many different forms. They are generally categorised as Intensive, Extensive or a combination of both (see images below). Intensive roofs have a deeper growing medium and can support a range of plants, whilst extensive roofs have a thin layer of growing medium and can support more specialised plants. The categorisation also refers to the amount of maintenance needed, so in the examples below, the intensive roofs are basic turf roofs and are used as a football pitch and lawn area, so require regular mowing. Roofs can also include different habitat types, for example logs, rubble and gravel to provide additional support to wildlife.

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