A Green Firm Grows

A lot of great American living takes place on rooftops. Think of Chevy Chase stapling up holiday lights in Christmas Vacation. Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo. Or Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. And who could forget Natalie Wood awaiting her doomed lover on the roof of the tenement in West Side Story?

Well, if we’re going to spend so much time up there, along with the pigeons and the lovers and the gangsters, it’s about time we dressed the place up a little and made it more comfortable.

That's where Live Roof comes in. The company, a subsidiary of Spring Lake-based Hortech, Inc, specializes in growing and distributing the plants used to assemble living, or green, roofs on a variety of buildings old and new.

Green roofs – meaning, literally, rooftops that are designed and built to grow a carpet of flowering plants – are no joke. The technology has come of age right here in West Michigan where developers are installing green roofs seemingly all across the region, including Rapid Central Station, the renovated Helmus Building in the Wealthy District, and the Wege Complex in East Grand Rapids. Indeed, Grand Rapids has become a national leader in this realm of the emerging sustainable development movement.

Boosting Profits and Ecology
Investments in green roofs, the experts are learning, return a series of economic and environmental benefits. They help conserve energy and reduce heating and cooling costs; minimize greenhouse gases while improving urban air quality; as well as slow and purify rainwater flowing from rooftops which improves sewer management. Green roofs also tend to cost less and last longer when compared to more traditional construction practices.

What's more, the national movement toward green roof installations is generating new opportunities and jobs for a variety of suppliers, contractors, and innovative startups like Live Roof which, according to the sign out front, is currently hiring a grower and a computer programmer. Founder David MacKenzie takes particular pride in using the greenest available production standards in his operation.

“Ours is an age of increasing awareness of the importance of preserving our environment,” MacKenzie says. “It is an age in which plants are being recognized for the benefits which they innately bring to our lives. Even so, we must realize that our good intentions can easily be tainted by negligent production practices.”

Not Your Daddy's Nursery
If you imagine some low-tech, hip-pocket, muddy knees sort of operation, think again. This isn’t your average nursery with root balls, dirt piles, and woodchips laying around. Live Roof is one of the few firms in the United States that is actively conducting practical research to advance the science and business of green roofs.

The company is intensely focused on determining which plant species are best suited for rooftops in various climates and geographic locations. It is popularizing “instant” or modular sections of green roofs that can be placed atop ordinary commercial and industrial buildings yet still yield results similar to more permanent structures. Live Roof has designed a smart, simple, patent-pending installation and drainage system. And the company produces soil to exacting specifications while offering a variety of mature plant mixtures all of which are roof-ready, low-maintenance, and gorgeous.

Live Roof clients include Ford Motor Company, which at one time claimed one of the largest industrial green roofs in the world after an extensive renovation of the Rouge Plant in Dearborn. Currently, the company is growing 48,000 square feet of mixed sedum for local furniture manufacturer Haworth, Inc.

Conservation Always Wins
Despite mounting public interest in and the far-reaching benefits of green roofs, the technology has yet to catch on as the standard in the architectural and construction industries. To that end, proponents say state and local governments can do more to stimulate the use of living roofs as well as the niche industry organizing around the technology. One way to accomplish these goals, even in Michigan's hard economic time, is to issue tax credits through municipal water systems.

“Other municipalities are starting to tax roof runoff,” says John Scholten, a sales specialist at Live Roof, who points to the City of Toronto as one example. “Toronto also gives tax credits for low-volume toilets and green roof installations. As a result, they’ve decreased water use in the city by 15 percent.”

Toronto projects a savings of $175 million over the next ten years in deferred capital investment based on its innovative water efficiency plan. The losses in water revenue due to water conservation are made up by a small rate increase.

The city not only pays credits on toilet replacements, it also pays toward efficient washing machines and provides audits and technical assistance on lawn care systems. Likewise, Chicago pays toward the cost of green roofs by the square foot. Grand Rapids and other cities in Michigan could benefit from developing similar programs and incentives, Scholten says.

These and other cities – including Seattle, Santa Monica, and Houston – have launched ongoing and intensive community education programs to build public support for such innovative programs. Local leaders of West Michigan's sustainability movement agree similar approaches could be successful locally, maybe even revenue neutral.

The thinking is that, as the region continues to face increasing population pressure, incentives to boost water stewardship will provide opportunities to delay or even avoid much of the breathtaking expense associated with large water infrastructure projects.