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Green Roofs – The Lungs Of The Modern City

Innova Top Green participates in Hackathon “Improving Air Quality in Bulgaria”

Хакатон подобряване качеството на въздуха в България

Innova Top Green, represented by Maya Krasteva, took part in the Hackathon “Improving Air Quality in Bulgaria”, held on 25 February 2022. The event, organized by Clean Air Fund in partnership with Green Sofia, MOVE.BG, VMware, Lime, Deloitte and For the Earth, aims to generate ideas and potentially viable solutions to tackle the problem of dirty air.

As a starting point for the hackathon was used the latest study conducted by Deloitte on behalf of the Clean Air Fund – “Impact of air pollution on career decisions of highly skilled workers in Sofia”. According to the study, it is clear that dirty air has a negative effect on productivity and work processes. Sofia is the European capital with the highest proportion of people considering air pollution the most serious problem in their city. The proposals of the participants, grouped in several teams, were not only aimed at the Sofia area, but also at any other large or small city in Bulgaria.

The idea proposed by Innova Top Green was the introduction of supportive public policies to build green roofs in Bulgaria.  The working team presented many arguments and examples from other countries where rooftop greening is a mainstream practice for the sustainable construction of public, industrial and private buildings. Green roofs have multiple benefits. They create a healthy and aesthetic environment and save money due to their high energy efficiency. A green roof fixes fine dust, ionizes and humidifies the air, reduces CO2 emissions and enriches with oxygen. Studies have shown that an extensive green roof of 100 m2 can filter 200 kg of dust from the air per year. These are some of the reasons that have made greening of buildings and especially roof greening a common building practice in developed countries for decades. Its popularity worldwide has become even greater in recent years in connection with the concept of green infrastructure and so-called nature-based solutions in architecture and construction. Numerous examples from Western European countries, the USA, Canada, Japan, Singapore, etc. were presented, showing that a prerequisite for the implementation of greening technologies in buildings is their regulation through legislative measures.

The idea of rooftop greening proposed at the hackathon was called “Green roofs – the lungs of the modern city”. It is time for the understanding of the modern city in Bulgaria to include new stimulating public policies. The authorities in Bulgaria, both at national and local level, have many opportunities to take action to achieve the carbon neutrality targets of the European Green Deal and to effectively implement the financial mechanisms it provides. The Green Deal recognises that Europe’s building infrastructure needs urgent renewal, not only to combat climate change, but also to lift millions of Europeans out of fuel poverty and to ensure that buildings provide a healthy and affordable environment in which to live and work. The Recovery and Resilience Plan for Bulgaria lays the foundations for a green and digital transformation of the economy and society, in the context of the ambitious goals of the Green Deal. The measures envisaged in the Plan, such as the Energy Efficiency Programme, could give a major boost to sustainable architecture and make rooftop greening a common building practice in Bulgaria as well.