Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Urban Development and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Moreton, the previous speaker, in his initiative in raising this matter of green roofs. The website www.greenroofs.com explains that green roofs are vegetated roof covers with growing media and plants taking the place of bare membrane, gravel ballast, shingles or tiles. The number of players and the layer placement vary from system to system and green roof type. However, all green roofs include a single to multi-ply waterproofing layer, drainage, growing media et cetera.

According to a 2004 report by Canadian landscape architect Goya Nagan, green roofs have been constructed for thousands of years, the most famous early example being the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. They have also been used in traditional buildings such as the sod roofs of rural Scandinavia. Experimentation in the early part of the 20th century found that green roofs required special waterproofing, since roots were found to grow in what were typically tar roofs. Over the past 35 years, research and experimentation has taken place primarily in Germany, where sophisticated membranes have been perfected, construction standards have been developed and the environmental, economic and social benefits continue to be studied. As in so many things, Germany, Austria and middle Europe has led the way in these matters since the 1960s. When the first generation of waterproof membranes showed signs of damage in the 1970s, techniques were documented and materials were developed to respond to building design issues. It is estimated today that 12 per cent of all German flat roofs are green, and the German green roof industry is growing at 10 to 15 per cent per year.

The best known example of this technology is the Ford motor vehicle plant in Rouge, Michigan. It includes the world’s largest ecologically inspired living roof—about 500,000 square feet—which dramatically affects the Rouge area watershed by holding several inches of rainfall. It also involves swales, shallow green ditches seeded with indigenous plants to improve the stormwater management, porous paving filters to water through retention beds with two to three feet of compacted stones helping to manage stormwater run-off, trellises for flowering vines, renewable energy sources such as solar fuel cells and the planting of more than 1,500 trees and thousands of other plantings to attract songbirds and create habitats.

I support the motion as I believe that green roofs make a lot of sense. Indeed, I believe that working on green roof projects can make a positive impact against greenhouse emissions. According to the Australian Greenhouse Office:

Commercial and industrial buildings consume very large quantities of energy and resources as their operators attempt to provide comfortable and productive environments for human activity ...

Greenhouse gas emissions from commercial buildings are projected to increase from 32 million tonnes of CO2 per annum in 1990, to 63 million tonnes in 2010 under the business-as-usual scenario ...

Buildings are important in greenhouse terms for a number of reasons:

emissions associated with their construction, operation, maintenance and demolition are large;

decisions made at the time of siting, design, construction and refurbishment have long-lasting consequences;

opportunities to capture renewable energy are often linked to the design and operation of buildings. energy are often linked to the design and operation of buildings

All of these are relevant facets of the increased interest in green roofs. As I said earlier, European initiatives led the way, but these days in Canada and the United States in general there has been a burgeoning of interest and activity on these fronts. Darebin City Council in Melbourne has also exercised environmental leadership in the design, construction and operations of the Reservoir Civic Centre.

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