Related Posts
Green roof technology breathes new life to the urban jungle
During the previous years, builders gave very little thought to the amenities that could be integrated into rooftop...
San Francisco Law Makes Composting MandatoryIf you intend to travel to San Francisco, be sure to mind your eco-manners. Failure to comply with...
Rich, green, urban – Copenhagen’s “hedonistic sustainability”
Young architects in Copenhagen, Denmark are designing buildings and infrastructure that aim to be environmentally sound without sacrificing...
Color coding: Thermeleon (thermal chameleon) roof tiles
A group of recent graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a roof tile that changes...
How Green Is My City?
It’s funny how times change. A city slicker of our time could not possibly imagine the life in...
Tip of the Day
When given the choice, take the stairs instead of the elevator to save energy and workout at the same time!
Copenhagen Becomes First Scandinavian City with a Mandatory Green Roof Policy
Image Source: LivingRoofs.org.
Last year’s COP-15 event may have achieved “epic fail” status, but that’s certainly not going to stop the former host city—Copenhagen, Denmark—from pushing their green standards a bit further.
Copenhagen is now the first Scandinavian city to put a mandatory green roof policy into action. The new policy requires vegetation and soil to be a mandatory part in architectural planning; in particular, it covers all roofs with a slope less than 30 degrees, plus the refurbishment of older roofs. By putting this new green roof policy into action, it pushes the great Danish city one step closer to reaching their carbon neutral goal by 2025.
Now, as far as the green roofs go, there is a list of specific requirements to consider. Buildings with green roofs must be able to meet at least 2 of the following requirements:
- The roof must absorb 50-80% of the precipitation that falls on the roof.
- The roof must provide a cooling and insulating effect of the building and reduce reflection.
- The roof must help make the city greener, reducing the urban heat island effect, counteracting the increased temperatures in the city.
- The roof must contribute to a visual and aesthetic architectural variation that has a positive effect on the quality of life.
- The roof must double the roof life of the roofing membrane by protecting it against UV rays, etc.
So far, at least 30 buildings in Copenhagen have green roofs—and this is before the policy even went into effect. I am curious to see what their next steps will be to add more green to the city.
By Heidi Marshall
Tags: architecture, carbon neutral, copenhagen, denmark, design, first, green roofs, green space, mandatory, policy, Scandinavia
One comment
You can also log in to post a comment.
Other Greenfudge.org posts
Creature Feature: The Balearic Shearwater
This week’s Creature Feature follows a tale of mistaken identity. The Balearic Shearwater is a critically endangered seabird native to the Balearic Islands: an archipelago near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal, Spain, etc.). Until recently, this bird was listed under several wrong classifications, including: a subspecies of the Manx Shearwater, a subspecies of the Mediterranean Shearwater, and finally it was settled as a distinct species from the Yelkouan Shearwater. Balearic Shearwaters are approximately 14 to 16 inches (35-40 cm)...
Creature Feature: The Pygmy Three-toed Sloth
Today’s Creature Feature takes us to the Isla Escudo de Veraguas, off the Caribbean coast of Panama. The Pygmy Three-toed Sloth is a Critically Endangered species. They are 20% smaller than other Three-toed Sloth species and weigh 40% less. Their homes can be found throughout the mangrove forests that surround the Isla Escudo de Veraguas—at least, for the time being. Sloths are generally known to be slow movers through the trees, but if you put them in water you’ll see a...
Foreign Pollution has been Bitten by the Travel Bug
In this day and age, the green standard is slowly becoming the norm. People expect more sustainability out of businesses and government policies. They expect their neighbors to be as eco-minded as they are and some obsessively follow every bit of news that mentions climate change, co2 emissions, cap-and-trade, and so forth. We all have our own personal standards and ideals of the best way to live a green lifestyle. However, it’s the governmental standards we have to worry about living...
11 whales refloated after mass beaching in New Zealand
According to a report in the Independent, at least 11 of the 58 whales that beached themselves on Karikari Beach in Northern New Zealand on Thursday night have been successfully refloated. The reports differ about the number of saved pilot whales – the Associated Press reports that only 9 survived and 4 were euthanized: The survivors had headed out to sea Saturday afternoon and were monitored to ensure they did not return to the beach, Conservation Department spokeswoman Carolyn Smith said. But...
Greenland glacier melt indicative of climate change
The massive 160 square mile (414 sq km) ice island that broke off from Greenland’s Petermann glacier earlier this month is ‘certainly a manifestation of warming’ according to Dr. Richard Bates of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Andrews, a geophysicist, is part of a British-led expedition in Greenland, which is measuring glaciers including the Petermann. From an article in the Telegraph: Dr Richard Bates, who is monitoring the ice alongside researchers from America, said the expedition had expected to find evidence of...
Climate Camp protester glues hands to desk at RBS HQ
In a bit of ‘News of the Weird’ meets environmental activism, a protester glued herself to a desk in the Royal Band of Scotland’s headquarters on Friday. Hundreds of activists have been holding a Climate Camp outside of RBS headquarters, near Edinburgh Scotland in protest of the bank’s loans to fossil fuel companies, thereby facilitating climate change or ‘climate chaos’. From a Press Association report: The activist managed to enter RBS by dressing like a businessperson – as opposed to an eco warrior...
SLOP17: Durban stinks
In 2009 you heard the trite references to Shakespeare about something being ‘rotten in the state of Denmark’ during the COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Well it wasn’t just the pickled herring. Nothing stinks worse than corruption, greed and short sightedness in the face of very real human and environmental threats, but toxic waste comes pretty close. Industrial solvents, benzene, dioxins, bleach and sulphides are just a fragrant after scent wafting through the air and just close enough that they might tickle...
Geo-engineering and the problem of sea levels
Geo-engineering doesn't prevent at all the rise of the tides. Engineering on a global scale is not a solution, even in an emergency, to the climate damage caused by human activities. This is the conclusion reached by a team of British, Chinese and Danish researchers after a new study on the future of the Earth's oceans. In their opinion there is no escape: sea levels will rise at least 30-70 cm by the end of 2100, even using the latest...
Critical Habitat to be Set Aside for Jaguars
Did you know that the mountain lion, lynx and bobcat are not the only big cats found throughout the US? There is actually one more found in the southwest: the Jaguar. Along with being found in the southwestern states, this cat’s territory sprawls throughout Mexico, Central and South America. However, at one point, they were almost completely wiped out from the states. Their population is currently on the decline and threats include: deforestation, poaching, hurricanes and humans. They are considered an endangered...
Can Slow Food Be Fast Food?
Guest post by Kelly Barrett If you are interested to guest post on our blog, click here to create an account or click here to contact us directly. --- I have previously blogged about how agribusiness doesn't necessarily have to have a negative connotation. I looked at the practices of my school's dining service, Bon Appetit, and how they are making strides to be more local, healthy, ethical, and socially conscious. So what about fast food? Does fast food have to mean non-local, unhealthy,...
View all articles
I, for one, think it’s atrocious that a city would *force* businesses to comply with an environmentalist policy. This is Socialism at its very height. The government will, of course, not furnish any of the money to help build the roofing (not that it should, because that would mean a tax hike nation-wide to pay for something that is a silly, nouveau-socialiste play-thing anyway) and will demand that businesses pay it or pay up. This means that either by increased building costs or by increased administrative upkeep due to fines and penalties, businesses will have to raise prices on EVERYTHING they sell, thereby driving the economy into a nose dive.
And what will a Socialist government like Denmark do? Why, raise taxes to offer businesses a bailout, of course! The only natural solution! What genius! What business acumen! What lovely economic aesthetics! Why, it’s a monetary system par excellence! Yes, let’s please bring more Socialism to the United States of America, since that hasn’t utterly raped, murdered, hacked into pieces, and buried our economy already!
Sorry, just a smidgeon of sarcasm in the foregoing paragraph. In all seriousness, who thinks this is a good idea? Environmentalists are exactly like watermelons: green on the outside, totally Commie-red on the inside, except for the nasty seedy parts that you have to spit out.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m a vegan, I like animals, I think nature is swell. But any idiot who still thinks man-made carbon dioxide contributes to global climate change in the wake of Climate-gate of 2010 is simply foolish! We have hundreds of e-mail records from top-notch enviro-goons at some of the country’s finest educational establishments. These e-mails specifically request that data which would speak contrary to the “global warming” agenda be squelched, gagged, hidden, destroyed, and/or denied. So tell me, HOW is global warming sound, objective science?
At the same time, in the last 10 years we’ve seen the birth of a new field called “cosmoclimatology”, which studies the link between solar output and weather patterns on the earth. What have REAL scientists found? Why, they’ve found that in years of greater solar activity and output, we have experienced higher-than-normal temperature on earth. And in years with lower solar activity? Lower temperatures, naturally.
Why would any but the most egotistical of thinking persons turn to man-made gases before studying the sun when asking the question, “Why is the earth getting hotter?” The sun is a HUGE fiery nuclear reactor in the sky that is constantly radiating our planet with life-giving warmth and kinetic energy, without which no matter how much you hugged the trees, they’d be dead and so would you.
Good grief, Charlie Brown.