Green Roofs Over UTB
A new look at creating sustainable structures planned before or after, regardless of materials used, is the creation of green roofs. Long popular in Europe, specifically in Germany, green roofs have become an appealing interest to various groups, businesses, and local communities as a way to become environmentally friendly. A green roof, as the name would suggest, is a roof with the applications of local plantation and use the neglected space to create various benefits to the area and structure itself. Using green roofs not only uses the neglected space but also provides an insulator and cooling system to the building, and naturally hotter urban areas, during hot or cold seasons. The urban heat effect is known also as the heat island effect which is common in urban areas where there are materials and structures that accumulate and absorb a large amount or heat. Run off that causes erosion can also be controlled depending on soil depths of green roofs that will allow it to absorb up to 15-90%.1
Many of the new buildings at UTB have a flat roofs that can be modified to have an extensive self maintaining green roof that will extend the life of the roof as well as provide a healthy environmental impact. Extensive green roofs are, lightweight veneer systems of thin layers of drought tolerant self-seeding vegetated roof covers using colorful sedums, grasses, mosses and meadow flowers requiring little or no irrigation, fertilization or maintenance after establishment.1 Air can be cleaned, cooled through evapotranspiration, and even provide local birds, already in the area, locations to nest. Having the added greenery on the roof including a few inches of soil can change temperatures through insulation and therefore cut costs to the use of air-conditioning and heating. Again, the soil and plant life can protect the roof from solar and weather damage extending the life of the roof and lower costs to maintenance. Although green roofs would be somewhat more expensive than a normal roofing project the average savings could be about two-thirds due to the decrease in energy consumption.2
We should continue to grow the movement that other countries, such as Germany, leads in.3 We can take examples by the city of Chicago, which has more green roofs than any other city in the nation with more than 600,000 square feet of green roofs with continuing projects planned for the future.4 If our state could give incentives and tax cuts for such projects and make ourselves part of the innovation sweeping the country, then we would be trend setters for something more than what some might view as a fad. We as a community and as a university can be the spark it takes to teach our youth and community about sustainability and living green. We can show how small ideas can lead to creative projects that repairs damage to our environment, before the damage is too great and irreparable.
Sources:
1http://www.greenroofs.com/Greenroofs101/ecological.htm
2http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/mitigation/greenroofs.htm
3http://www.sustainable-eastside.net/Green%20Roofs%20Report%202.07.05.pdf
4http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2346
