Eco Brooklyn

Filling the Void- Weather Barriers and Sealers

patricklove55 — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:09:50 +0000

In green construction, the largest monetary gain in energy saving over a buildings life-time is achieved with a relatively small investment in sealing the building envelope. As a green design and building firm, we try to adhere closely to Passive House Guidelines, creating extremely well-insulated, virtually air-tight buildings that protect the occupants the most from the outside environment.

Even though the cost is relatively small compared to the savings, it is actually very difficult to determine the method that is most effective in establishing solid separation between the outside environment and the inside of your home. Every human wants a home that is best at keeping the rain and wind out, and the best at maintaining a comfortable temperature during the changing seasons, but making that happen to the high green building Passive House standard is quite a task.

More than insulation, doors, windows or heating systems, an airtight envelope makes the biggest difference between a warm home and a drafty cold one. Likewise, such air seals often double as humidity barriers too.

Though it may be tempting to jump to high VOC adhesives, sealants and tapes as an air seal to achieve the desired effect, BuildingGreen.com has a great series of articles that advise otherwise.

Before thinking about adhesives it is important to focus on the architectural aspects of a building that can help it protect the
inhabitants. Drawing inspiration from fisherman’s storm gear, many buildings can successfully deter rainwater through the utilization of simple weatherlaps like overhangs. The basic message is physics trumps chemistry over time. As a green contractor we like this because it reduces the use of chemicals (glue etc).

Yet, rough weather can sometimes negate the effect of weatherlaps so other sealing methods must be employed. In this case, GreenSpec Insights recommends additionally using gravity and mechanical fastening as the second line of defense. Typically fasteners, gaskets and cleats can be effective barriers by aiding weatherlaps to make continuous contact from one barrier to the next.

If the aforementioned techniques do not get the job done, GreenSpec Insights suggests for the use of sealants. In such circumstances, it is important to define your options; adhesives, sealants, mastics and putties are not all created equal. Some of the low VOC water based adhesives are not as long lasting as the toxic alternative. This leaves us in a predicament to determine which is the most effective strategy for applying adhesives.

Here are the positive impacts that low or no VOC adhesive and sealers can have:

opens the door to additional business and increased margins

easier to dispose of
low odor during application; no odor once cured
reduces landfill, groundwater and ozone depleting contaminants.
reduced toxins benefit everyone, including those with allergies and chemical sensitivities
improved worker safety and health.
reduced incidents of eye and respiratory irritation
no symptoms of “sick building” syndrome such as headaches and fatigue

As a NY Green Contractor, we use no or low VOC in all of our adhesives, sealers, and paints because it follows closely with our green building principles. Our experience is mostly with residential brick brownstones. On the inside we run an air barrier with no or low VOC sealant along the front and back walls. This seals the exposed walls.

The walls that are connected to the buildings on each side of the brownstone are not such a concern for air sealing because these spaces are occupied as well and thus have similar temperatures. We do seal them nonetheless to reduce drafts. Our favorite option is to seal the walls with clay, a beautiful material that also helps in humidity control

Here is an Eco Brooklyn passive house job where we sealed around pipes.

In this Passive House job of ours the bulkhead and roof is completely seal with a vapor permeable layer that lets humidity pass through, thus avoiding mold, and does not let air through.

We try to collect all electric cables in one spot and pass them through the building envelope all at once. Here we are sealing the pipe where the cables pass through the house air envelope

Green Gardening Do It Yourself Activity

patricklove55 — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:05:21 +0000

As an ecological NY gardener we have to admit that the greenest gardening is gardening done by the client and not us. Here is a quick do it yourself activity that you can complete for your New York City green garden in a few hours that can have lasting ecological, aesthetic, and environmental benefits. Create a beautiful planter box with a hidden cache of water out of completely salvaged materials.

We removed large portions from a shrub of a native invasive species (native=good, invasive=annoying) from our garden to aid the growth of other plants. Following ecological building techniques that Eco-Brooklyn loves, we only use salvaged materials to create this project: plastics bottles and cups were used for the water retention mechanism, salvaged wood was used create the gardening box, and recovered carpet was used for the root barrier.

The plastic bottles and cups retain water so that when it does not rain for extended periods of time, the plants can still find sustenance.

This activity will also save you a large sum of money. If you were to purchase all of the materials new then you would incur the following costs: $20 dollars for a garden box, $50 for root barriers, and $10 for new soil. Over $80 can be saved by following these green gardening techniques! We hope you enjoy creating beautiful!

Step 1:
Remove plants from your garden that are native invasive plants, buy native plants from your local nursery, or plant seeds. Here is what our shrubs looked like before and after removal:

Before- shrubs to the left and right of the path were removed.

After

Step 2:
Obtain a flowering pot or gardening box. Try your best to not buy a new one. You can create one by getting a salvaged wood and nailing it together to create a gardening box or get one from your friendly neighbor’s trash. Here is what ours looks like:

Step 3:
Garner used plastic bottles or cups from your house, local garbage cans, or recycling facility. Here are the bags of bottles and cups that I collected on Smith Street:

Step 4:
Cut plastic bottles or cups 3 inches from the bottom. Cut as many as it takes to fill the bottom of your gardening box.

The half cut cups are stacked and the half cut water bottles are displayed in front.

Step 5:
Place cut plastic bottles and cups at the bottom of the garden box.

Step 6:
Obtain a root barrier and cut it accordingly to the shape of your gardening box. Or use a carpet underlayment from the trash like we did.

Step 7:
Place root barrier in gardening box over the half cut bottles and cups.

Step 8:
Acquire soil from your yard and place in the gardening box. The mix we used was 3 parts soil and 1 part mulch.

Step 9:
Plant native invasive plant, new plant, or seeds within the box, water and enjoy! Admittedly our plant looks very sad but they will cheer up after a few days.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

patricklove55 — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:57:23 +0000

The main metaphor of Betty Smith’s novel “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” is the hardy Tree of Heaven. The major inspirational theme that she used was that the Tree of Heaven’s persistence was like her character’s and families ability to overcome adversity and thrive. Little did she know that this plant is an invasive species that is actually capable of widespread destruction of urban property and native ecosystems.

Species can be characterized into four different groupings:

Native and invasive
Native and non-invasive
Non-native and invasive
Non-native and non-invasive

Many people confuse these terms and think that non-native and invasive are synonymous terms. You can have a species that is non-native and non-invasive, such as the Japanese Maple that may not be the best fit for an ecosystem, but does not harm it in any damaging way. While on the other hand, you can have a species that is native and invasive such as the Virginia Creeper, a weed that wreaks havoc on gardens.

Non-native invasive species are the biggest problem for both humans and the environment. First of all, non-native invasive species have large impacts on ecosystems that they invade by threatening biodiversity, changing the chemical makeup of the water, altering the food web, and transforming the availability and distribution of resources within the ecosystem.

Non-native invasive species are so powerful when they enter a new ecosystem because they evolved with other competitors and native species evolved in the absence of invasive species. Therefore, native species lack the ability to compete with non-native invasive species for resources which gives non-native invasive species the upper hand when resources become scarce. Consequently, there is an overall decrease in biodiversity as the area invaded becomes less populated by native species and more taken over by non-native invasive species.

They can dominate an ecosystem to the point where they are the only organism that can occupy it, creating what scientists call a “dead-zone” because there is no other biodiversity within the area.

Non-native invasive species effect on humans is less direct but still detrimental. The main way that humans are affected is economically by paying for direct management and control of the invasive species, and decreased productivity of crops. The annual estimated cost in the United States of non-native invasive species control and productivity loss is about 120 billion dollars per year! Humans also pay this price in a non-quantifiable manner; by destroying local habitats, non-native invasive species destroy ecological services that we rely so heavily on such as water and air quality protection, carbon sequestration, and mitigation of the heat island effect.

Is important to avoid non-native plants because they are alien to local organisms and thus break down the web of life. A native oak tree in New York attracts a huge ecosystem of native bugs, plants, animals, microbes and other life forms within its roots and canopy, which in turn connect to ecosystems around it.

Non-native species (both invasive and non-invasive) are a big problem for New York City. According to the New York Department of Conservation there are six types of trees that are considered to be non-native in New York. Believe it or not, two of these types of trees could probably be found on almost every city block! The non-native invasive species is called the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) and the non-native non-invasive Norway Maple (Acer platanoides).

The Tree of Heaven (or Tree of Hell as some angry botanists have called it) can grow anywhere: between cracks in pavement, drainage inlets, and in poor, rocky soils, along roadsides or in abandoned lots. The Tree of Heaven is so pervasive because it produces large quantities of seeds, grows very rapidly, and quickly overruns native vegetation. The tree decimates ecosystems by producing toxins that prevent the establishment of other plant species. The Tree of Haven also has highly aggressive root systems that damage sewers, sidewalks and foundations of buildings.

The native animals have evolved with the tree over millennium, creating an intricate web of life. However a Tree of Heaven is alien to New York’s native life forms. It has been removed from its Asian ecosystem where it has a place in the checks and balances of nature. But in NY native animals may not have the enzymes to digest its leaves, microbes may not harmonize with the roots, bugs many not like its bark, which means it won’t attract birds looking for those bugs etc.

By understanding these connections New York ecological gardeners can strategically place plants to create a vibrant ecosystem. Plant it and they will come.

But the Tree of Heaven creates the exact opposite: the dreaded dead zone. And if it is invasive on top of that then the dead zone is simply larger as the trees spread. And this is not a question of time. Trees that have been introduced to NY hundreds of years ago still create dead zones. Remember, a hundred years is a second on the clock of evolution.

According to the NYC Street Tree Census, 14.1% of all street trees in New York City are Norway Maples. Norway Maples are non-native and non-invasive, but they are still considered dangerous to our ecosystems because they create shallow root systems that make it difficult for native seedlings to get established. In addition, they generate a dense shade, under which other species cannot survive. Also, they are a threat to humans because of their shallow and hollow roots, which are also prone to being blown down.

To remove non-native species, NYC parks recommends to cut them repeatedly during key times in the growing season, suppress them with herbicides, manually remove individual plants, and plant native species to eventually help shade out exotic plants. This way, native plant, animal and insect species work together in a natural harmony controlling excessive development of any one species at the expense of another. By having native plants you can personally enjoy the benefits by using less water and pesticides.

As a green landscaper at Eco-Brooklyn we try out best to identify and remove all non-native plants within the scope of our work. We make it a priority to plant a harmonious collection of native species within the NYC gardens that we work with, creating robust and biodiverse green spaces. Following natural landscaping principles we apply three parts borate and one part water to roots and stumps to non-native species and native invasive species to prevent any future growth. As green gardeners, we make sure that when a tree grows in Brooklyn it is definitelynative and non-invasive.

The Tree of Heaven and its signature leaves.

A typical Norway Maple.

A massive Tree of Heaven in neighbor's backyard. You rarely see squirrels or other birds in its canopy.

Intern Zachary Heyman removes the final branch from a Tree of Heaven in the backyard of the Green Show House. We plan on making a tree house out of the trunk.

Fracking Song

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Wed, 16 May 2012 01:32:27 +0000

Check out this song about fracking. As a New York green contractor we do a lot of eco kitchens because people want cabinets without formaldehyde, a cancer causing chemical. Fracking releases formaldehyde into the water, as well as Benzene, both very toxic and cancerous chemicals. We understand these chemicals and have made a conscious effort to remove them from our services. We are not interested in the chemicals coming back in our tap water.

New York Green Roof Installer Costs

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Tue, 15 May 2012 01:43:35 +0000

I was bidding on a green roof in lower Manhattan the other day and the architect threw out a price of $25-$35 per square foot as a typical price to install a green roof.

He is correct that a green roof can cost $25-35/sq.ft. I have even seen really large jobs cost less. There are always exceptions.

But that green roof usually has certain qualities:

It is a shallow green roof of 3-4″
It is a large green roof with economy of scale
It does not contain construction elements like a box frame
It contains plugs or cuttings that take a year or two to spread
Roof access is easy (elevator or for large roofs, crane)
Street Access is easy (easy parking, lots of unloading space and time)

However, that square foot price jumps when the following are added:
Soil depth (more soil to ship and get to the roof and the plants tend to be larger and thus costlier)
Smaller roofs – base costs remain the same regardless of roof size
Construction elements like boxes, seats …
Pregrown mats or trays (you are paying somebody else to grow them plus the proprietary trays come at a premium)
Difficult access (like a recently finished and clean private home, narrow streets, no parking)

Essentially a green roof price starts at $25 if you have the most basic large size green roof, easy access and find somebody willing to cut prices.

But I have seen green roofs as expensive as $500 a square foot. If you have a 100 square foot green roof in a fancy apartment building in Manhattan your life is going to be really difficult. Parking tickets are the least of it. Difficult doormen, building rules, and unwelcoming neighbors are all part of the mix that drive prices up.

Throw in a fancy pregrown tray system, some custom made edging and a top of the line irrigation system because they want it to appear lush year round, and you have a green roof that costs more than a a farm in Indiana. But boy is the green roof beautiful! There is something about a green roof on the new York concrete jungle that really can’t be beat.

New York as envisioned by a NY Green Roof Installer

Green Roof Layers Mimic Natural Soil

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:15:05 +0000

Here is a great graphic showing how green roof construction mimics in a few inches what normal soil does in a couple feet. Plants want water, but not too much. They want something to dig their roots into that also provides nourishment.

Showing how the design of successful green-roof systems mimics earth’s natural soil layers

Green roofs have to provide this but because it is a roof you can’t have tonnes of soil up there. So much soil would be very expensive to install and support.

Normal soil is deep so it holds lots of humidity for the plant to drink from. But because it is deep the excess water drains down. This way the plants get water but their roots don’t rot in standing water.

The green roof accomplishes the balance with the help of several layers. The growing medium, filter sheet and protection layer act as sponges to hold water. The drainage layer has little cups that fill up with water. This provides a lot of water in relatively little space and with very little weight.

At the same time when the drainage mat cups fill up the excess water overflows and easily passes underneath it away and down the roof drain. This means the roots don’t sit in water and rot.

The green roof medium is usually an aggregate for the roots to dig into so the plants don’t fly away, mixed with something very nutritious to feed the plants. This mix also has to be very light. The aggregate ideally holds water as well.

Some examples of aggregate are crushed brick, lava rock, shale, and shredded Styrofoam. Sometimes clay is mixed is as an added water retainer as well as binder. As nutrition compost or peat is added.

The growing medium duplicates in very little space and with little weight what normal soil does.

The end result may not be as perfect as natural soil, and this has to be remediated by using hardy plants that are ok with severe rooftop weather conditions and poor soil. Sedum is happy hanging on the sides of a cliff in the wild, as are many grasses and other small plants, so the options for a green roof are large.

As a New York green roof installer we use a mix of North American native sedum with some grasses and even small bushes. Even though the green roofs we install are typically less the 4″ deep, they look very lush and require minimal maintenance because the green roof replicate so well the natural soil conditions of the plants.

The trick with all green building, and this includes natural landscaping, is to replicate natural phenomena so that they work with little energy input from us. A green roof is a perfect example of this.

A Fresh Start for a Contaminated Brooklyn Garden

Alec — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:37:17 +0000

Spring gardening is upon us and as a New York soil remediation company we are getting a lot of calls from clients wanting to remove lead contaminated soil from their back yards. We just finished a job last week.

The clients had a beautiful garden in the back yard of their brownstone in Bedford Stuyvesant. Several years of careful work had brought a happy profusion to the space, with native plants nestled close to roses and figs, carefully placed tall grasses creating a tiny ‘secret garden’ area, and a raised bed providing fresh vegetables every summer.

But when their adorable son reached 18 months old, they decided to have the soil tested before letting him play in the garden – and they were very glad they did. The soil was contaminated with 2500 ppm (parts per million) of lead, enough to make it unhealthy for adult contact and very dangerous for a child. To put the number in perspective: uncontaminated soil has about 10ppm of lead; in the Netherlands, 40ppm or more is considered unacceptable; in the US, the EPA advises remediation in children’s play areas at 400ppm!

Lead has found its way into our urban soils mainly from paints and (pre-1980s) automobile emissions, and like other heavy metals it is very persistent and will be there for many years to come. It can poison us either through direct contact with the soil or by eating plants that have grown in it, and it causes damage to the brain and nervous system, behavior problems and slow growth in children, as well as reproductive problems in adults.

Unfortunately, almost all soil in New York City (and other major metropolises like Detroit) are contaminated with heavy metals. A $35 soil test from Brooklyn college will tell you what heavy metals you have and in what quantities, but it’s safe to assume contamination if you’re gardening in the city. Luckily there are several options for remediation, and as an ecological contractor, we can find solutions that work with your situation and budget.

The fastest and most affordable methods involve switching to container or raised bed gardening with fresh soil; the least expensive but slowest option is phytoremediation, where plants that take up heavy metals from the soil are grown and removed several times over 2 to 5 years; and the fastest and most pricey involves removing and replacing the existing soil.

In this case, we worked with the clients to find a custom solution that would quickly have their garden ready for their son to play in. The whole area was covered with a layer of compost to bind with lead and alkalinize the soil (making heavy metals less available to plants):

Remediating a back yard with high lead levels.

Then a layer of landscape fabric was laid as a root barrier. This also creates a break between clean and toxic soil in case the client goes digging later.

Remediating lead contaminated soil with root barrier

Six inches of fresh soil were brought in to go on top of this, and extra was added to recreate the raised vegetable bed. Many plants were carefully transplanted and preserved so the garden wouldn’t have to be started completely from scratch.

Adding clean top soil over isolated lead contaminated soil.

We then laid the border, the bluestone and built a nice little deck in the back out of old growth salvaged wood. We planted native will grass instead of laying sod. It should be sprouting in the next couple weeks.

A lead free garden

Thanks to his parent’s green thumbs and a little bit of help from Eco Brooklyn, our client’s son will grow up with a safe and beautiful garden for play and exploration, but most gardens and back yards in New York have not been tested or remediated, and we can only guess at the long term effects of lead exposure for us and our children. So if you’re gardening (or thinking about it), be sure to get a soil test, and call us for a consultation if you’d like to find out more about remediating your soil.

Design Revolution Book and a New York Living Machine

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:43:43 +0000

I read the book Design Revolution, 100 Products That Empower People by Emily Pilloton to see if any of the designs could apply to a New York green contractor.

The book is organized into eight sections:

Education

Enterprise

Water

Energy

Mobility

Food

Well-being

Play

There were plenty of great ideas that could be applied to a New York city home – cool solar panels/wind harvesters in the form of leaves, composting toilets that normal people would use, all sorts of bike ideas, and a food composter that looks like an espresso machine.

The most interesting thing for me was the Eco-Machine, designed by Todd Ecological, a company founded by John Todd. An Eco Machine, also known as a living machine, uses plants and microbes to filter waste water. This has direct applications for New York ecological landscaping and green construction.

A Brooklyn brownstone, instead of passing its sewer to, say, the Gowanus Canal it would pass it to a series of water gardens in the yard. These gardens would be beautifully designed to fit into the an environment used by children, adults, pets and Williamsburg hipsters.

The key is in the design of combining function and aesthetic, something a good eco-landscaper could do. The end result of the Brooklyn Brownstone living machine is a lush yard full of healthy plants and a NY sewer system that is not overloaded.

This is not unrealistic. It is very practical and possible. It is also illegal. Great ideas move faster than massive bureaucracies like the Department of Buildings and Department of Environmental Protection….

A living machine system in Florida

As an ecological landscaper who uses gray water and rain water runoff to feed the garden the idea of a living machine takes it a step further. Very exciting stuff and something I plan on implementing at an undisclosed brownstone near you.

Japan Style and Green Building

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:49:42 +0000

The book Japan Style – architecture + interiors + design, by Geeta Mehta and Kimie Tada contains lush photographs by Noboru Murata and is an inspiring insight into how traditional Japanese buildings are deeply green.

Green building is a symbiosis of many levels that forms a harmonious whole, and architecture in older societies like Japan is filled with a complex structure that covers an astounding array of natural, social and spiritual perspectives.

The book does a great job at showing these levels.

I am especially drawn to the book because the homes are on small lots in urban environments, and as a New York green contractor I know very well what it means to build green on small urban lots.

Unlike your typical New York homes, the Japanese homes in this book are expansive and deeply connected to nature. They are not expansive in size, in fact the homes are minuscule compared to US standards, rather they are expansive in style.

And this is the genius of traditional Japanese architectural design. The photographs show rooms and vistas as broad as a mansion, yet the square footage is not. This real feeling of space and airiness is achieved through intelligent placement of openings onto the garden, the use of fine building materials and a sparseness of design that was modern many centuries before Modernism became popular.

So much of Japanese traditional building echoes today’s green building ethos. The materials are all natural. The floor plans are small. Rooms are used for multiple uses. There is a deep connection between the home and the natural surroundings around it, both in terms of design and materials. The buildings follow the credos of “Less is more” and “form follows function”.

But most importantly for me the design is based on the understanding that our home is, like our body, a temple full of spiritual power. This element turns a collection of building materials into something more than rooms and walls. By being built with an understanding of the spiritual element of design, these homes not only give protection to the body but give support to the soul.

Green building is about natural materials, low embodied energy and energy efficiency. But it is a sack of bricks without the meaning behind it, which has many levels, from political, ecological, social, cultural and yes, spiritual. This meaning is something the traditional Japanese builders, with the benefit of a deep and old culture, drew from and imbued into their work.

The result is a home that nourishes on so many levels. My green contracting work in NY is a world apart from traditional Japan, but in this postmodern world where green building is both simultaneously drawing from cutting edge technology on one side and centuries old techniques on the other, there is a place for traditional Japanese building techniques on my tool belt.

A green builder, if anything, is somebody with a large tool belt.

The Craft: Up On the (Living) Roof

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:10:53 +0000

Chrongram Magazine mentioned Eco Brooklyn in a recent article on green roofs. It is below:

A close-up of the green roof installed at the Mohonk Preserve Visitor’s Center in Gardiner by Aurora Landscape Design.

by Gregory Schoenfeld, April 27, 2012

When Shawn McCloskey returned home to his native Kingston in 2000, things were pretty much the way he had left them. After years in the Pacific Northwest, honing his craft of landscaping design, McCloskey began to build his Aurora Landscape firm in a Hudson Valley design scene that was comfortably reminiscent of the one he had grown up with.

It was a bit too comfortable for McCloskey’s taste.

“I looked around and realized that things weren’t happening around here,” recalls McCloskey. “We needed to see change, and we needed to diversify.” Seeking to incorporate the kind of sustainable advancements that are, unfortunately, often more prevalent abroad than in the United States, McCloskey found his inspiration in green roof installation. A longstanding practice in regions like Scandinavia, and for decades an increasingly popular environmental trend in many European countries, a “green roof” is exactly what it sounds like: living vegetation thriving on top of building structure, just where common sense would dictate. Continual developments in technology and application have transformed the sod-and-grass roofs of old Norwegian villages into a spectacular—and sustainable—array of choices.

Joining forces with trend-setting manufacturer LiveRoof, which offers an environmentally sound, pre-vegetated modular system, McCloskey’s work has hit the ground—or the roof—blooming. Examples of striking blends of multicolored Sedum plants, and the reduced carbon footprint they provide, can be found at places like Rhinebeck’s Omega Institute and atop the Mohonk Preserve Visitors’ Center—providing precious visibility for a movement with a seemingly unending list of benefits. Besides the obvious aesthetic improvements (when was the last time you stopped and gazed at a field of well-laid roof shingle?), green roofing begins with long-term savings, both residentially and commercially. “The best part is, the sustainability is a result of practicality,” says McCloskey. The UV protection provided by a properly installed system can triple the life expectancy of the roof itself, and the improved insulation can save 25 percent or more of heating and cooling energy usage. Living roof coverage also comprehensively helps with stormwater drainage issues, and it’s myriad associated costs. The secondary effects are equally as significant, as the process helps reduce pollution as well as damaging overheating effects, particularly in urban areas.

Slowly but surely, the United States is catching up with the global awareness of how beneficial green roofing can be, with recent legislation providing tax incentives for implementing the green technology. Practitioners like Gennaro Brooks-Church—whose Eco Brooklyn design firm does groundbreaking work in New York City, where any living space is at a premium—believes that the holistic environmental and lifestyle improvements of green building suggest a mandate for a sustainable future. “People are increasingly seeing the necessity of green roofs, especially in cities where stormwater runoff, heat island effect, pollution mitigation, local food sources and diminishing wildlife habitats are all concerns,” explains Brooks-Church. “A green roof helps solve all these issues.”