Winter 2025: The Innovation Issue

Learn how Toronto’s award-winning Green Roof By-Law and the Toronto Green Standard shaped resilient, climate-positive cities, improved air quality, supported pollinators, and provided energy savings, and why their loss could impact Toronto’s future livability

Green roof substrates are the foundation of successful living roofs, yet they are often misunderstood. This article explores how evolving guidelines, industry-led innovations, and ongoing research are reshaping green roof growing media, revealing why substrate choice is critical to plant performance, long-term durability, and the future expansion of green roofs in diverse urban climates.

Learn why engineered green roof soil is essential for long-term performance and plant health on rooftops. This article explores lightweight, durable green roof growing media, flexible soil systems for diverse applications, deeper soil solutions for amenity-focused roofs, and science-backed product development that meets industry standards and evolving design goals.

Discover how UNIQA’s award-winning green façade in Graz transforms a 1980s office building into a vibrant vertical ecosystem. This case study explores the project’s modular living wall design, innovative planting and irrigation systems, environmental benefits, and its role as a scalable model for urban green infrastructure retrofits across Europe.

What are the most transformative innovations shaping green roofs and green walls today? Leading industry experts share insights on performance-based design, smart irrigation, advanced leak detection, substrate innovation, wind uplift standards, and tech-enabled green walls.

Discover how leak detection systems protect green roofs and the waterproof membranes beneath them. This article explores common construction-related membrane risks, explains passive and automated leak detection technologies, and demonstrates through a real-world case study how early detection reduces repair costs, minimizes disruption, and safeguards the long-term performance of green roof systems.

Toronto’s green roofs improve in plant health over time, with roof size, building height, and vegetation type driving long-term success. Insights from NDVI remote sensing guide sustainable, resilient urban green infrastructure planning.

This article explores the potential of growing fruiting crops beneath solar panels on green roofs, examining opportunities, challenges, and the role this innovative system could play in resilient urban food and energy systems.

This research explores saffron’s potential as a high-value, sustainable crop for Kentucky by comparing multiple growing systems and biofungicide treatments. By examining how different environments influence yield and plant health, the study offers new insights into optimizing saffron production and expanding its viability in regional agriculture.

This article explores the farm’s regenerative vision, hands-on education programs, real-world research, and the lessons it offers architects, and planners who wish to reimagine how food systems can be integrated into the built environment.

This article explores how disconnection is passed from one generation to the next, why wealthier nations often feel furthest from nature, and what we can learn from cultures where human-nature relationships remain strong.

Explore Green Roofs for Healthy Cities’ 2025 achievements and plans for 2026, including professional training milestones, Grey to Green conferences across North America, new industry resources, and a preview of CitiesAlive 2026 in Brooklyn, New York.