A Rooftop Oasis in the City Desert

The green movement is alive and well in Ontario and many organizations are accepting and promoting initiatives to reduce our society’s demand for energy, resource management and waste reduction. One of the latest developments comes from the Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) — Living Green Together.

It’s an interesting initiative for two reasons: (1) the rental industry in Ontario contributes over $18.3 billion to the GDP, supports some 150,000 jobs and generates $7 billion in tax revenues for various governments; and (2) rental housing is one of the last adopters of sustainability programs, for various reasons.

The new FRPO “green” standards are contained in the organization’s Certified Rental Building program, and include such things as the installation of energy- and water-saving fixtures throughout the building, continuous education of tenants on reducing energy consumption, promoting resource management (such as water usage), and encouraging reduction, reuse and recycling of waste products. In order to be certified, buildings are regularly audited by world-renowned marketing information services firm J.D. Power and Associates.

Green initiatives in the building industry are not new and some of the common-sense standards on the FRPO initiative have been common practice in new developments for some time — water usage reduction items such as low-flow toilets, for example, energy saving light fixtures and environment-sensitive heating and cooling systems — but there are also environmental initiatives that aren’t as well known.

For example, Toronto was the first city in North America to pass a Green Roof bylaw. A Green Roof is exactly what it sounds like — a vegetation cover on top of a building — and is sometimes referred to as a “living roof.”

They’ve been around for centuries, when you think back to the moss-roofed houses in the middle ages. The modern green roof trend can be attributed to Germany in the ’60s. Though in some instances, the top of the structure is completely covered in grass, most notably in rural private residences in Europe, in many of today’s new city developments the roof is more akin to a park, where people can sit, children can play and gardens can grow high above the busy streets below.

Dundas Square Gardens - via Easton's Group

As of April 30, 2012 in the city of Toronto, any new development (commercial, industrial, institutional and residential) with a gross floor area greater than 2,000 square metres is required to include a green roof, with the size of the green space dictated by the building’s total square footage.

Green rooftops serve several purposes. Vegetation helps clear the air through photosynthesis (we breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen) and is therefore essential to cities where a lot of carbon dioxide is expelled on a daily basis.

Green rooftops also have an insulating effect, providing a layer of natural cover to help negate temperature swings inside the building, requiring less energy use to heat or cool the building. They can also aid in storm runoff and collect rainfall to be used for various purposes in the building, helping to conserve the filtered municipal water, and they can also create a habitat for wildlife, particularly birds that may otherwise be displaced by the new development.

The design and content of green roofs are limited only by structural requirements (some roof designs can accommodate more soil, which creates opportunities to grow different plants, or allow the inclusion of deeper ponds or fountains), roof design (some have slopes, which require special landscaping) and location (since the climatic conditions at 80 storeys, for example, are different than they are at the river bank).

Even in regions where they aren’t mandated, green roofs are gaining acceptance because they provide an oasis for human reflection and interaction with nature, in the otherwise barren city desert.