Greening the Grey

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The University of Glasgow have been working on a NERC Integrated Green Grey Infrastructure Funded project called Greening the Grey, with the aims of addressing gaps in the knowledge of how we green the parts of our cities and towns that need to remain grey for their primary function like seawalls, pavements and bridges. The project report has recently been completed. 

This report has several key features: 

  • The first UK synthesis of measures that can be used to green grey non-building assets such as bridges, coastal flood alleviation structures, street furniture and linear assets like railways. 
  • It provides an evidence-based directory of measures that can be used to help Green the Grey, drawing on the latest scientific research and innovations in practice from around the UK and beyond. 
  • Historic, urban, mowing and coastal environments are covered including 14 case studies, 22 one page Art-of-the-Possible examples and 16 bite sized Art-of-the-Possible vignettes. 
  • A critical success factors framework has been created to evaluate the multifunctional benefits of green grey solutions compared to business-as-usual grey engineering options. 
  • The framework has been used to provide cost-benefit comparisons for the case studies and art-of-the-possible examples. 

The report can be downloaded in different formats:

The project will be continuing for another 12 months to help embed the Greening the Grey/ Integrated Green Grey Infrastructure (IGGI) concept within organisations and learn how it has been helpful in informing policy and practice.