Green Roof Systems Overview

The vegetating of a roof surface is described under a number of generic terms: brown roof, biodiverse roof, living roof etc. Each has evolved from the original terminology green roof for marketing reasons or to differentiate specific methods of achieving habitat creation for flora or fauna. To further complicate matters there are generic technical descriptions, used globally in standards and code of practice, to describe the construction of green roof systems. These are Extensive, Semi-Intensive, Intensive and Biodiverse. Following is a guide to some of the more common options available together with a brief overview of what they are and what they provide.