This article explores several seasoned green roofs where designers selected plants for their preferences for wet to dry habitats. Plants that thrive in wet, mesic, or xeric (dry) conditions can be employed on green roofs to perform a range of integrated building functions such as energy conservation, micro-climate mitigation, or cleaning of wastewater.

This article provides an overview of various policy initiatives underway by the European Commission that may support greater green infrastructure investment, in response to severe climate change impacts experienced throughout Europe this summer.

Sustainable Futures: Designing Green Communities and Buildings is an all new biweekly podcast from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities featuring interviews and discussions about the innovative approaches to green infrastructure, resilience planning, and sustainable design. Dr. Brad Bass explores one of the most direct manifestations of climate change, the urban heat island - what it is, how it works, and what can be done about it.

The Polish Green Roof and Wall Industry is thriving under a series of new national and local funding programs and regulations.

The abiotic conditions of the ExGR substrate are analogous to those of native dry grasslands (poor, shallow and highly drained soil), providing opportunities for diversifying ExGR with native flora. This study characterized vegetation and substrate dynamics of a sown native dry grassland community on a 254 m² ExGR in relation to microenvironmental conditions.

This article provides an overview of events, professional training, new Green Roof Professionals, new members, and a Buyers Guide.

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities’ founder, Steven Peck discusses addressing water management in a holistic manner in development projects.

The widespread use of living architecture can help us build more bridges between the artificial and natural worlds, opening up new possibilities for urbanites to connect to nature and support conservation.

Thoughtful green infrastructure projects, including green roofs and living walls, are one important strategy to provide crucial habitat in cities. Although many specifics vary by region and climate, there are several basic things to consider when designing for biodiversity on green roofs and other green infrastructure. 

Dusty Gedge explains how new policies enacted in England promise to improve biodiversity by measuring the biodiversity related impacts of development and requiring a net gain in biodiversity – good news for green roofs.

The massive Meadow at the Old Chicago Post Office brings innumerable environmental, social, and economic benefits, while giving one of the largest buildings in the country a second chance at life.

Back in May 2020, the European Union presented its biodiversity strategy for 2030 – a comprehensive plan to protect nature, reverse the degradation of ecosystems and put Europe's biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030.

When designing a living roof for a particular kind of habitat for wildlife, it is important to know that some forms of wildlife (i.e., specialists) are dependent upon a specific species of grass for its development while generalists can be served by multiple species of grasses.

This award winning project in Long Island, New York illustrates the important contribution homeowners can make to biodiversity conservation on their roofs while enjoying high quality amenity space.

This deep dive into the design of a sustainable industrial facility in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) developed through the leadership of Peter Jakob, Founder of Jakob Systems, demonstrates the remarkable performance capabilities of green facades.

As climate adaptation policies and programs become an increasingly more significant driver of community infrastructure investment and practice, the Green Infrastructure Charrette Program can be adapted to help communities build upon latest best practices and align staff, elected officials, and the public towards holistic solutions that create long-term value.

Biodiversity should not be viewed as a project afterthought but should be at the forefront of all city and project planning. Green roofs should be as biodiverse as possible given project constraints.

Dr. Stephan Brenneisen, the father of green roof and biodiversity research discusses how to design green roofs for biodiversity, green roof policy in Basel Switzerland and his future plans.

In this study, 21 green roof tables were constructed and utilized to compare nine green roof treatments including a roof water reservoir designed to provide temporary water storage (blue roof), two commercially available module systems, these module systems combined with a blue roof underneath (blue-green roof), rockwool, pavers, gravel, and the roofing membrane alone.

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