Comparative life cycle costing analysis of green roofs: The regional aspect

Abstract

The increasing environmental concerns and poor practices force construction industry to take some remedial measures for green and sustainable built environment. Especially in urban areas, one of these measures is to build green roofs for minimizing the environmental pollution. In fact, green roofs present a number of economic, environmental, and social benefits. However, compared with traditional roofs, green roof investments have high capital and maintenance costs and this makes potential investors hesitant about their applications. Therefore, in the present study, benefits and life cycle costing parameters of green roofs were evaluated through a literature review. In this context, numerical inputs and findings of past studies were utilized. In doing this, a special emphasis was placed on the regional characteristic of such investments as it is a natural feature of any life cycle costing analysis. In conclusion, the majority of benefits and life cycle costing parameters was found to be highly variable, and thus, any life cycle costing assessment that will be performed in the future should be case-sensitive instead of using some generalized or raw data. Therefore, based on findings and results of this study, industrial practitioners and potential customers may have a useful source of economic, environmental, and social information about green roofs while researchers may be encouraged for more region-specific studies.