GRO Green Roof Code 2021 version – 10 year update now includes blue and biosolar roofs – available for download
The Green Roof Code 2021 has been released by the Green Roof Organisation (GRO) as part of World Green Roof Day. The first major update since 2014 now includes definitions, specifications and guidelines on blue roofs – roofs that incorporate sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) – and biosolar roofs – green roof with solar panels. The code also now includes biodiversity net gain (BNG).
At P&P we believe this triumvirate of sustainable roofing will be the biggest driver of the living roof business in the UK over the next five years:
- Blue roofs – reduce run off, preventing floods and pollution.
- Biodiverse roofs – provide habitat and food for multiple species, improving biodiversity compared with site prior to development.
- Solar panels – reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
This change will be mostly driven by tightening of planning laws to ensure new developments are more sustainable than those we tend to see currently.
You can read or download the brand-new code here:
GRO board member, and COO at Pritchard and Pritchard, James Beattie commented:
“Before the Green Roof Code was introduced in 2011, there was no UK guidelines or code of conduct for living roofs, and it was difficult for a client to tell reliable technologies and installers from the less reliable. Today clients can rely on the fact that GRO members are signed up to the Green Roof Code and the roofs they install will meet not just the GRO guidelines, but also the European guidelines set by Daddy of living roof standard bodies the German FLL.”
“We are particularly pleased to see the inclusion in the code of blue – storm management – roofs and biosolar, both of which P&P expects to become dominant in living roofs over the next five years as city planners force developers to build more sustainably. We expect all future developments to follow the lead of Galliard Homes, with its Wimbledon Grounds project which features pervasive blue-green-solar roofs.”
