{"id":80001,"date":"2018-06-25T07:02:47","date_gmt":"2018-06-25T14:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/australian-cities-are-lagging-behind-in-greening-up-their-buildings"},"modified":"2018-06-25T07:02:47","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T14:02:47","slug":"australian-cities-are-lagging-behind-in-greening-up-their-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/australian-cities-are-lagging-behind-in-greening-up-their-buildings","title":{"rendered":"Australian cities are lagging behind in greening up their buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/australian-cities-are-lagging-behind-in-greening-up-their-buildings.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Covering roofs and walls of buildings with vegetation is a good way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And these green roofs and walls make cities look nicer. Toronto\u2019s central business district <a href=\"https:\/\/web.toronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/8f15-Report-on-the-Environmental-Benefits-and-Costs-of-Green-Roof-Technology-for-the-City-of-Toronto-Chapter-2.pdf\">adopted a policy<\/a> of establishing green roofs on around half of all city buildings in 2009. Research shows this could reduce maximum city temperatures by up to 5\u2103.<\/p>\n<p>We spent the past 12 months analysing the case for more greenery on Australian city buildings, drawing on international comparisons. We\u2019ve shown that a mandatory policy, coupled with incentives to encourage new and retrofitted <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/green+roofs\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">green roofs<\/a> and walls, will provide environmental, social and business benefits.<\/p>\n<p>These include improved air quality, energy conservation and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rics.org\/uk\/knowledge\/research\/research-reports\/sustainable-urban-drainage\/\">reductions in stormwater run-off<\/a> from buildings, which would decrease flash flooding. Green roofs and walls also become new habitats for biodiversity and can be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/314527276_THE_IMPACT_OF_HORTICULTURE_THERAPY_ON_MENTAL_HEALTH_CARE_CONSUMERS_ON_A_RETROFITTED_ROOF\">pleasant spaces<\/a> for social interaction in dense urban areas.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018-06-australian-cities-lagging-greening.html\">https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018&#45;06-australian-cities-lagging-greening.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Covering roofs and walls of buildings with vegetation is a good way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And these green roofs and walls make cities look nicer. Toronto\u2019s central business district adopted a policy of establishing green roofs on around half of all city buildings in 2009. Research shows this could reduce maximum city temperatures [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":467,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1497,15,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-energy","category-habitats","category-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}