research. We try to direct it to the extent
possible, because science is largely about
performance. Science is what tells us how
much stormwater is that green roof or wall
holding. What are the air quality benefits?
How much energy am I saving in my
building? Science is really important to us,
so we work with science and the science
generates data that we can then turn into
educationa l programming and our
educationa l prog ramming i s what
facilitates the advocacy work that we do. So,
it's all interrelated. Science is really critical,
because one of the barriers that we
identified twelve years ago was lack of
i n d e p e n d e n t s c i e n t i f i c d a t a o n
performance, and that's been a fundamental
pillar of the development of our industry –
us ing and eng ag ing the sc i enti f i c
community. Now, there are dedicated green
roof research facilities all over North
America doing research.
BUSINESSWORLD:
Talk tome about
the issues that come to your desk, the ones
that membership is concerned about, that
they want you to pay attention to, and
maybe advocate for. What i s the
membership talking about these days?
PECK:
Obviously, we're very interested in
developing the market. We have a number
o f l o c a l g o v e r nmen t s t ha t ha v e
implemented either a requirement for green
roof, so far, Toronto, for example, has a
green roof bylaw, where all new buildings
over a certain size, I think it's 4,000 square
meters of floor space, have to have a green
roof on them. And then we have a whole
range of policies that governments can put
into place that can help reduce the costs,
Stephen Peck
46 | BusinessWorld |
August-September 2014
