Chapter 7: Green roofs

Green roofs offer a sustainable construction technology that can deliver multifunctional environmental, social and financial benefits. Central to this is an opportunity to add and restore nature back into the built environment through ‘renaturing’. Renaturing buildings with green roofs brings myriad benefits, including positive impacts on buildings, their occupants and local communities, and more broadly to regional resource managers such as water companies. This chapter starts by signposting key resources for the planning, delivery and maintenance or stewardship of green roof systems and gives a brief overview of the different types and components of green roofs. It sets out key technical design factors for practitioners planning a green roof system and provides more detailed guidance in relation to predominant drivers for including green roofs in a project, including additional resources to guide all aspects of green roof development. Some specialist green roofs are explored and examples given of key UK planning policies and sustainability certification systems that motivate green roof installation.