Speakers and presentations

Tom Liptan, Bureau of Environmental Services, City of Portland, Oregon, USA.

The Pacific Northwest of North America (Portland, Seattle, Vancouver) has one of the best examples of integrated and strategic approaches to green roof implementation in the world.  Portland leads the way, with the local authority, in partnership with developers, achieving remarkable success in green roof implementation.  Tom will explain the reasons for this success and will, through a dramatic animation, present the results of a groundbreaking study of the potential economic and environmental benefits to developers, building owners, citizens, and the city as a whole of different degrees of urban roof greening over a projected 50 year period. 

Edmund Maurer, Development Planner, City of Linz, Austria.  ‘Green roof policy and strategy in the city of Linz’ 

The city of Linz typifies the approach taken by a number of cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland – a combination of legal framework, financial grants, and policy incentives.  As a result 300 green roofs of many different types have been implemented in the city in the last two decades.  Edmund will describe how the planning framework operates in Linz, and the reasons for the success of the programme.

Dusty Gedge, Director, Livingroofs.org 

Dusty has relentlessly championed the cause of green roofs in the UK, and has been responsible for introducing the concept of green roofs for promoting biodiversity to this country.  He will give an overview of green roof development in the UK, and identify key areas where further action is needed to stimulate uptake on a larger scale.

Dr Brad Bass, Centre for Environment, University of Toronto, Canada. 

Brad Bass has been a pioneering researcher in green roofs and energy conservation, and now has an unrivalled database of information relating to how green roofs can contribute to energy conservation in winter and summer, at the level of individual buildings through to entire city regions.  Brad will give an overview of how green roofs work with heat and energy, using examples from a wide range of real buildings, and indicate how this can deliver real benefit to owners, developers, and local authorities.  He will introduce an exciting new model that allows the potential contribution of green roofs to reducing the ‘urban heat island’ of a city to be demonstrated using simple baseline information.

Dr Virginia Stovin, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Sheffield. 

Virginia has over 10 years experience in the field of urban drainage engineering, with a particular focus on stormwater management.  She has led the development of tools for the economic and performance evaluation of retrofit urban drainage options against conventional options. Virginia will discuss how green roofs work in relation to stormwater management, and will outline both how this can relate to economic benefit for individual buildings, developments, and cities, as well as how it relates to current and future legislation and policies. 

Ed Snodgrass, Emory Knoll Farms, Philadelphia, USA ‘Plants for Green Roofs’   

Ed is the author of the forthcoming book ‘Plants for Green Roofs’, to be published in summer 2006 by Timber Press, and runs the largest nursery dedicated to the supply of green roof plants and vegetation in North America.  He will describe the types of plants that are, or could be, used in green roofs of different types, and the untapped potential that still awaits wider recognition. 

Dr Nigel Dunnett, Senior Lecturer, Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield 

‘ Ecological and Horticultural Opportunities for green roofs at the large and small scale’  Nigel is an ecologist and horticulturist, and  author of ‘Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls’, published in 2004 by Timber Press - the first English-language text devoted to extensive green roofs, and also of the forthcoming companion volume:  Rain Gardens: creative design and management of water around buildings.  He has undertaken large-scale trials of green roof plants for UK use, and is particularly interested in colourful, naturalistic and ‘habitat’ based approaches to green roof planting.  He will outline the range of exciting possibilities for green roof planting, and the various approaches to vegetation establishment, with particular focus on garden and small scale applications. 

Dr Stephan Brenneisen, University of Wedenswil, Switzerland ‘Green roofs for Biodiversity’ 

Stephan is undoubtedly the world authority on the use of roofs to promote biodiversity.  The significance and influence of his work can be seen in the widespread implementation of biodiversity roofs in the Canton of Basel, Switzerland, and in many of the actual and planned extensive green roofs in London.  Stephan will illustrate the wide-ranging benefit to wildlife and habitat that green roofs can bring, and will suggest approaches to design and implementation that maximize that potential.