GREEN ROOF TECHNOLOGY: A STRATEGY TO REDUCE THE IMPACT OF

GLOBAL WARMING.

Asmat Ismail1, Muna Hanim Abdul Samad2, and Abdul Malek Abdul Rahman2
1
Department of Building, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Bota 32600 Perak, Malaysia
2
Department of Architecture, School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia,
11800 Penang, Malaysia

Corresponding author: asmat_ismail2007@yahoo.com

Abstract

Global warming phenomenon or climate change has grabbed people attention worldwide. This
phenomenon leads to many environmental issues including, higher atmospheric temperatures,
intensive precipitation and increase greenhouse gaseous emission. This climate change also will
affect the indoor comfort temperature of building. When the outdoor air temperature increases,
building will experience indoor discomfort conditions. The demand for mechanical ventilation will
be critical and lead to higher energy consumption in building. In conjunction with, researchers
worldwide collectively agreed that one way of reducing the impact of global warming is by
implementing green roof technology. This paper aims to investigate the cooling potentials of
green roof in Malaysian climate and how potted plants can contribute to the effort to reduce the
carbon dioxide concentration in atmosphere. Green roof has been known be one of the passive
techniques in reducing energy consumption and thermal performance of building. It also can be
used to mitigate heat island effect in urban areas and therefore lessen the impact of global
warming. This paper highlights the problem statements, the objectives, the methodology, the
hypothesis of the research and also reviewing previous researches.

Keywords: green roof, thermal performance, energy consumption, carbon dioxide.

Introduction

Global warming or climate change is one of the most serious environmental threats to the current
and future world generations. It has already been widely accepted as a reality. The climatologists
worldwide collectively agreed that this climate change is 90 percent certain to be due to human
activity (Smith, 2005). The man-made greenhouse gas emission is a major contributor to this
climate change. In 1992, more than 180 countries signed the Framework Conventions on
Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro, which declares that serious action should be taken to reduce
man-made greenhouse gas emissions. In 1997, 38 countries comprise mainly industrialized
countries, including US, all countries of the European Union and some other European countries
like Norway and Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan; and a few countries in
transition to a market economy such as Russia and Ukraine signed the Kyoto Protocol which
agreed to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 2008 to 2012.
However, after 4 years of signing the Kyoto Protocol, the parties still could not agree on the final
details of implementation. The situation was even worse where by the emission of most countries
have increased over the last few years. After taking office, President Bush declared that US
would withdraw from the Protocol (Bohringer et al., 2002).

Malaysia too feels threaten from this current environmental condition. By the year 2025, it was
predicted that Malaysians can expect higher temperatures which will cause frequent, widespread
and more intense heat waves, flooding, drought, tropical storms and surges in sea levels.
According to weather expert, global warming could even turn Malaysia into an arid state just like
Africa’s parched states. Professor Dr Fredolian Tanggang, Climatologist and Physical
Oceanography from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, said the weather was expected to increase
by 10 Celsius in the next 20 years (Minderjeet, 2007). Since the human activities are one of the
main causes of global warming, a commitment to bioclimatic architecture design and dependence
for renewable energy will eventually be the norm.
Background to Research

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Why Construct Green Roof?

Green roofs are defined as roofs that support vegetation (Werthmann, 2007). They consist of
vegetation and soil, or growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. Sometimes
referred to as eco-roofs or roof gardens, (Anon, 2007b, Dunnett and Kingsbury, 2004), they may
also require additional layers such as drainage layer, roof barrier and irrigation system (EPA,
2007, Pledge, 2005) and distinguished as either intensive or extensive. According to Dunnet
(2004) and Werthmann (2007), extensive green roof requires only 2 to 15 cm (0.8 to 6 inch) of
substrate depth and require minimal maintenance. It is inaccessible to public and is mainly
installed for environmental performance and visual improvement. In contrast, intensive green roof
consists of soil substrate generally at least 15 cm (6 inch) deep and can be accessible for public.
Intensive green roof requires regular maintenance and much heavier than an extensive green
roof. Roof gardens can only be built on the roofs of building that are strong enough to support the
load. They are ideally suited to reinforced concrete structures and steel frame.

Germany has developed the modern versions of green roof technology in the 1960s and then
spread to other countries in Europe. This technology is common in the USA especially in
Chicago, Portland and Atlanta. Both the governments of Canada and United States have begun
to embrace the European model of green roofs since the beginning of the new century. The
adoption of progressive building standards and protocols that encourage and reward
environmentally sustainable practices, including green roofs was taken into account in both
countries. In the United States, the General Services Administration and Department of Defence
has mandated that all of their buildings should include green roofs as a method of achieving a
higher environmental rating under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
initiative (Snodgrass, 2006). While in Canada, the Canadian government began including green
roofs in a continuum of sustainable initiatives eligible for partial reimbursement and funding
(Snodgrass 2006 cited Peck 2005)(see Snodgrass, 2006).

In the United Kingdom, the livingroofs.org, which is an independent UK resource for green roof
information has been established to provide comprehensive resources for planners,
developers, architects, clients, and others who wish to design, install or promote green
roofs. The objectives of this organisation are to highlight the benefits of green roofs as well
as to study their pits-palls and problems as well as highlighting the case studies of good
practice (Anon, 2007c).

Green roofs have also been found to make dramatic improvements in a roof’s insulation value. A
study conducted by Environment Canada suggested that greening a minimum of six percent of
total available roof space 70 million square feet (6.5 million square meters) in Toronto could
reduce summer air temperature by 10C to 20C (Pledge, 2005). In the United States, it has been
estimated that if all roofs in a major city were “greened”, urban temperatures could be reduced by
as much as 7 0C (Anon, 2007a). Since green roof has been proven in reducing thermal and
energy consumption in buildings in other countries, its effect in Malaysian climate should also be
investigated.

Problem Statement

Increase urbanization and density in Malaysia brings about more new lands open up for
developments. This phenomenon leads to higher environmental temperatures in those areas. As
a consequence, warmer conditions will be experienced in built environment. The situation is more
critical during daytime hours where indoor discomfort condition will appear to be frequent. This
situation will lead to higher dependency to mechanical ventilation, thus increase energy use in
buildings. One way to overcome these problems is the green roof construction. Other countries
have proved that green roof can provide numerous benefits.

In Malaysia, most people still do not expose to this kind of technology and it is also not widely
explored by the Malaysian researchers. Therefore, the technical information on how to construct
a green roof is almost unavailable. Other parts of the world have implemented the green roof

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(extensive or intensive) which required the growth of plants on the growing medium on the roof
surface. This kind of method leads to higher initial cost as compared to the conventional roof
systems and require the expertise of a green roof contractor. Since this technology not
widespread due to cost constraints and maintenance, necessitates the need for other
inexpensive alternatives involving plants, the simple’s green roof system could be used in order
to reduce the construction cost and maintenance.

Research Objective

The objectives of the research are as follows:

a. To investigate the influence of potted plants on rooftops on indoor comfort.

b. To estimate the extent of energy saving on tropical climate following the application of
potted plants on rooftop.

c. To evaluate the rate of CO2 uptake by chosen potted plants in order to reduce the CO 2
concentration in atmosphere.

Significance of Research / Contribution to the Body of Knowledge.

a. This study could be used to reduce the problem of indoor discomfort due to high ambient
temperature.

b. The finding of this research could be used to create a healthy environment by using
plants to trap carbon form the atmosphere, thus possibly reduce the CO 2 concentration in
atmosphere.

c. The positive outcomes of this research can be used to create a new guidelines
associated with future green building or bioclimatic building designs.

3
 Conceptual Framework

Improve
Improve
thermal
thermal
performance
performance
Thermal && Reduce
Reduce
Thermal
performance energy
energy
performance &
&
energy consumptio
consumptio
energy consumption
consumption
nn in
in building
building

Green
Green
roof
roof
systems
systems
CO
CO22 Uptake
Uptake
by plant’s
by plant’s
CO
CO22 concentration
concentration in
in leaves
leaves might
might
atmosphere
atmosphere reduce
reduce CO CO22
concentratio
concentratio
nn in
in
atmosphere
atmosphere

Figure 1: The flowchart showing the conceptual framework of the research

Research Hypothesis

a) Potted plants on rooftop can reduce indoor temperatures and able to contribute to the
reduction of energy consumption in buildings.
b) The CO2 concentration of atmosphere can be reduced by implementing potted plants on
rooftop.

Literature Review

Green roof can give protection from solar radiation by reducing thermal fluctuation on the outer
surface of the roof. They also contributed to the cooling of spaces below the roof during summer,
increase their heat during winter, and said to be saving energy consumption due to the decrease
of the thermal losses. Thermal performance also varies according to the different types of
vegetation (Niachou et al., 2001). The above finding has been supported by Nyuk Hien et al
(2003),Kohler et al (2002), Zhang et al (2006) and many other researchers. . They found that
planted roof can reduce the surface temperatures of roofs and reduce heat transfer into the room
underneath. It contributed to the improvement of the indoor thermal environment and thermal
performance of buildings. They also proved that the different types of vegetation may have a
favorable impact to the thermal performance of building. Nyuk Hien et al (2007) also discovered
that extensive greenery coverage led to better thermal performance. The combination of green
roof and solar thermal shading also lead to the reduction of average indoor air temperature by
5.100C, compared to indoor air temperature with typical roofing system (Kumar and Kaushik,

4
2005). Eumorfopoulou and Aravantinos (1998) discovered that by providing large surfaces of
rooftop with vegetation, the thermal performance of building will be improved. This finding was
supported by Niachou et al (2001) which discovered that the indoor temperature values in the
building with green roof are lower during the day. The measurement of roof temperatures was
done in non-insulated building with and without green roof. The result shows that the non-
insulated building without green roof are vary from 42 to 48 0C while the temperatures of the green
roof upon non-insulated building are lower and ranging from 28 to 40 0C. They also concluded that
the existence of large temperature differences due to the installation of green roof could
contribute to energy saving potential.

Research Methodology

a. Literature review.
The first step in conducting this research is to collate data from past and previous research
projects or experiments. Data collection can be based on previous research from
international journals, websites, and such.

b. Experiment to be conducted.

The Experiments will be conducted in three phases:

First phase: Identification of potted plants to be chosen on the roof based on the higher
CO2 uptake.

Second Phase: The measurements of ambient air temperature, surface temperature of the
bare roof, ambient CO2 concentration and indoor air temperature before the installation of
potted plants.

Third Phase: The measurement of ambient air temperature, surface temperature, the rate
of CO2 uptake by plant’s leaves of chosen potted plant.

Instrumentation

BABUC A/M Environmental Data Logger will be used to measure indoor and outdoor
temperatures. While the CO2 uptake by plants and CO2 concentration in atmosphere will be
measured by using LI-6400 Portable Photosynthesis System by LI-COR.

c. Table information and data

After the experiment has been established, all the information and data will be tabled
appropriately before analysis to ensure the validity of the result.
d. Analyse and report result.
All the information and data from the experiment will be analyzed.
e. Conclude and give recommendations.
Conclusion and recommendation will be made at the end of the research.

Diagram below shows the flow chart of the methodology that will be used for the research.

5
 Determine green
potted
plants that have the
highest carbon dioxide
uptake

Once identified purchase

as many required to cover
the concrete flat roof of
a building

Arrange the potted

plants measurements

C02 uptake Surface temperature Indoor environment

measurements measurements measurements

Successful results confirm another passive design options for

architects to implement for future buildings

Figure 2: The flow chart of research methodology

Expected Output

Upon the completion of the research, several outputs might be expected as follows:
a. The rate of energy saving in building after installing certain quantity of potted plants on
rooftop.

b. The rate of CO2 uptake by potted plants on the rooftop after applying certain plants and
certain quantity of them.

By conducting this research, we are hoping to obtain a positive result in reducing the energy
consumption, improve thermal performance and improve external air quality as much as
extensive or intensive green roofs can provide.

6
References