How green roofs could help California wine industry

I have a green roof.

It’s green asphalt composition, except in the summer when the eight overhead redwood trees drop all their needles, and the roof turns brown.

But I’ve always wondered about the advantages of providing a green plant-based roof.

Green roofs are loosely defined as a living green space on top of the human-made structure, such as a home, office or warehouse.

Typically, they are above grade, but you might consider a wine cave bored into the ground a green roof structure. Green roofs can provide a wide range of public and private benefits and have been installed in countries all around the world.

This is not like planting a garden or park on our roofs although multiple types of herbs plants and fruits can be grown safely and to the advantage of the building owners. Green roofs don’t just look edgy, they are also highly energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. They’re really cool — literally.

Building owners can reap good financial returns on their investments by providing significant economic, environmental and social benefits both in cities and in our communities.

However, green roofs can be complicated. They vary by the region, solar orientation, building design and the complexity of construction. They require high-quality waterproofing, a rigorous water repellent system, superb drainage, layers of filtered cloth, and careful attention to details. Some green roofs can be portable and require independent drainage. Using interlocking grids or loose built-up containers can be installed separately.

It’s not necessarily easy but it has great benefits to our environment and our battle against climate change.

Green roofs can provide the following:

• Vegetation slows rainwater from dumping into gutters, downspouts and into the earth, providing stormwater management.
• In summer, green roofs can reduce heat gain by 25%–40%; in the winter, green roofs can reduce heat loss by 40%.
• For urban areas, green roofs will reduce the urban heat island, affect. The light absorbed by the plants can be converted into growing energy, not building heat.
• Covering large warehouse and building areas in urban areas can reduce their heat gain and reflectivity substantially.
• Plants on these green roofs can improve air quality potentially, they can also filter noxious gases, although complicated.
• Green roofs can reduce noise in urban areas or near airports, such as the growing industrial complex around Napa’s airfield.

Could green roofs be an asset to the Wine Country?

Green roofs might seem like a crazy far out concept, but it could be a great benefit to the Wine Country.

Providing warehouses and wine storage does not have to be exclusively in wine caves or highly air-conditioned buildings. Instead, providing green roofs could have significant advantages to our wine industry.

There’s no question that green roofs are heavier and require more structural support, sometimes up to 25% more, but for new design buildings, this is easy.

Such structures don’t have to be concrete it can be combination of wood and steel frames with ample slope for drainage and excellent waterproofing.

Rather than spending over $1,000 a square foot to bore a cave for wine storage, the cost could be one-third if a practical warehouse is built with a living, breathing green roof.

At the same time, one can achieve LEED status with reduce carbon footprint and potentially lower maintenance cost, if properly installed.

Greening our North bay roofs could be a great PR strategy. PR as in politically righteous. We could turn lemons into lemoncello. Forget the lemonade.