savings fromday one.
Similarly, Walmart has done nine green
roofs throughout the U.S. and just
completed a study that indicated the return
on investment for those projects is between
zero and three years.
“They’re looking out long term because the
roof is going to last longer and they see the
benefit long term,” Keitges said, “but
they’re also seeing the ROI from a payback
perspective pretty quickly aswell.”
Boston-based Lux Research forecasts the
green roof industry to be worth $7 billion
by 2017.
And not surprisingly, Keitges expects her
company to have a stake in that prodigious
uptick. She said Columbia Green has had
particularly success, market-wise, within
the large-scale urban environments in and
around Washington, D.C., New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Seattle,
Vancouver and Toronto – all places with
significant infrastructure concerns and
desires to findnewways tomanage them.
Ohio,Wisconsin, Kentucky andCalifornia
July-August 2014
| BusinessWorld | 129
