Monday, August 03, 2009

Green walls the next big thing?


The concept of green roofs is well established in the United States, indeed internationally. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) offered its first accreditation exams for Green Roof Professionals (GRP) in June 09 during its 7th Annual International Conference in Atlanta.

Steven Peck, who founded the organization in 1999, said he expects about 250 registered GRPs by the end of 2009. More than 100 have earned the designation of this writing. Check out the GRHC website for details on how to become certified. Exams will be offered in Toronto, San Francisco, Chicago and New York this fall.

“A roof isn’t just a roof anymore,” said Peck, who spoke at the May meeting of the American Society of Irrigation Consultants. “The real estate is just too valuable.”

Can the same thing be said about a building’s wall? You bet.

A second related trend in urban green building is the green (living) wall. Peck said that GRHC is working closely with green wall manufacturers, has established a Green Wall Research Fund to support investigation into the benefits of green walls for buildings and is now offering a Green Wall Award of Excellence to celebrate innovative projects.

“Right now green walls are about five years behind green roofs,” said Peck, predicting strong adoption of green walls as more professionals get up to speed on their design, installation and maintenance.

A good place to learn about green walls and see some exciting projects is the website for a company called GreenScreen. Lots of great info there. Click here. — Ron Hall

2 comments:

Nadia said...

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Sunshine Grounds Care said...

Will they want wall lawn mowers next?