Institute's Green Roofs Research Study

The Institute, Barking Riverside Ltd, University of East London (UEL), the Environment Agency and small and medium enterprise (SME) business partners are working together on a 12 month study investigating practical green roof applications to help mitigate the environmental impact of large scale regeneration. 

Green roofs are known to enhance buildings' thermal performance by reducing heat loss and improve biodiversity and air quality, as well as mitigating against climate change factors including flooding and high city temperatures.

Thirty two test platforms have been constructed at the new Barking Riverside development team office.  Twenty four are being used to test different compositions of flora, substrate depth and drainage layer depth.  Four are left empty as experimental controls and the remaining are being used for other research purposes.

 

Monitoring is vital in order to determine the optimal solution for local biodiversity including those most attractive to rare species in the region and structures which reduce surface run-off most effectively.  Ultimately, the best solution will be scaled up and used on 40% of the 11,000 new homes being created at the Barking Riverside development.

This large scale demonstration will give much needed technical evidence about the impact and performance of green roofs in regeneration programmes.  The Institute will share the outcomes to encourage other developers and planners to adopt similar strategies.  

Longer-term, it is hoped that this initial research will inform a four year study investigating wider issues including the reuse of construction waste in green roof structures and the development of software that accounts for regional environmental factors to produce regional specifications for green roofs.

To find out more about the Green Roofs project contact darryl.newport@instituteforsustainability.org.uk