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“Part of the vision for GRIN is to use green roofs to break down silos. If we truly acknowledged the climate emergency, biodiversity crisis and loneliness epidemic, there would be green roofs everywhere. We have the tools. We just need political will, and critical mass,” stated Christine Thuring. The “story behind the story” is that Christine Thuring and her GRIN colleagues are committed to putting green roofs back on municipal radar screens. They have a vision, they have a plan, and they are doing outreach. It takes passion, hard work, and perseverance to have mission impact.

Harvy Takhar is following his passion in unexpected ways. It led him down the green roof pathway to international recognition. He had an epiphany when he recognized there was a gap in green roof engineering. “The idea was to harvest the benefits of green roofs, while keeping them healthy by storing water considering most green roofs adversely affect building systems during the drought. So we added a water cavity, known as the blue roof component, that will feed the green roof portion with capillary irrigation, and it can draw water when it needs it,” says Harvy Takhar.

“CEOs, CFOs and building owners were obviously looking at the bottom line and not necessarily what it would cost them, but what the operating costs were going to be. They talked with staff and quickly realized it was a place people wanted to work and loved to work. They really picked up on so many pieces of the puzzle. They would go on and incorporate what they saw into their own office buildings or new builds. And when you have businesses doing that you move markets.” reflected Mary Tod Winchester.

“Green infrastructure focuses on cost-effective, living, upstream solutions. And there is no-where farther up stream than the roof! Green infrastructure is so powerful because it harnesses the simple solutions of nature to provide primary and secondary benefits,” states Charlie Miller, one of the key people behind friction-detention technology. “By virtue of their huge surface area and their large lateral extent, green roofs change the hydrologic response of the roof surfaces that they cover.”

“Imagine a traditional vegetated roof of customary design. The vegetated roof acts like a sponge. However, when the sponge is wet, the entire system is designed to drain rapidly,” wrote Sasha Aguilera. “Though it is possible to achieve detention via increased distance to drain and reduction of the slope, those two changes are often impractical or impermissible. However, the introduction of friction to a vegetated roof system is possible; thus causing a temporary accumulation of water within the vegetated roof.”

The Climate Mobilization Act is the largest single act to cut climate pollution of any city. In a densely packed metropolitan of over seven million residents, commercial and residential buildings are the largest source of emissions and sit at the center of the policy change. “My legislation will require green roofs to be installed on new residential and commercial buildings, making New York the largest city in the nation to pass such a law,” stated Rafael Espinal. “We’ve already seen the revolutionary benefits of green roofs in action thanks to places around the city.”

“We modelled what could be delivered in the City of Sydney and the City of Melbourne based on the measures taken in Singapore (which is voluntary-heavy), London (voluntary-light), Rotterdam (voluntary-medium) and Toronto (mandatory). We combined this with data on actual green building projects in 2017 in Sydney and Melbourne to show the potential increase of projects in each city based on the four policies,” stated Paul Brown.

“With water such a major global issue, it’s vital that we make use of every available opportunity to save, re-use and re-cycle water and, where we return it back to the ground, we do so in a managed way,” stated Dr Jason Shingleton. Hence, it is imperative that the design of infrastructure changes to become more environmentally friendly. He urged using Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems on the roofs of high-rise buildings to manage rainwater and reuse it to nourish the trees and vegetation planted on ‘green roofs’.

“Design firm Arup just published a study on the benefits of plant-covered buildings – some of which are so green they look like they’ve been deserted by humans and are slowly being reclaimed by nature – and they found the benefits go way beyond just sucking up CO2 and looking pretty,” wrote David Nield. “The company’s engineers took a variety of measurements in five cities to see what impact extra greenery could have.”

Tanya Müller García presents “Areas Verdes de la Ciudad de Mexico & Azoteas Naturada” – “Mexico City’s Green Plan & Green Roofs” providing a description of the Green Plan in Spanish with English subtitles. An Inventory of Green Areas of Mexico City is provided as well as inclusion for the first time of green roofs in the Cities Green Inventory. Tanya also presents some examples of green roofs in Mexico and future projects.