I have just read an article in the Reader's Digest about the chap who started Living Roofs. Excellent idea and a good way to bring back some of the habitats lost in the construction of the building.
Independent UK Green Roof Information and Research Resource
I cant find the article online so I have copied it below
HIGH FLYERS
How many circus performers does it take to get big business to look after rare birds? In Dusty Gedge's case, just one.
"I've been a birdwatcher since I was knee-high to a grasshopper," says Gedge, a 43-year-old Londoner. As an adult he became a street entertaine. While teaching circus skills to young people in Deptford, he was asked to carry out a bird survey and found a rare black redstart,
So began Gedge's mission to save this robin-sized songbird with a bright orange tail. It's partial to industrial wasteland -- but so are developers. As a result, black redstart numbers have dwindled to fewer than 100 breeding pairs in the UK.
It struck Dedge that the bird's urban habitat could be transferred to the top of the buildings that have usurped them. He'd heard about green roofs - flat roofs covered with rubble then seeded with local plants and wildflowers - and set about learning more.
Common in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, green roofs were practically unknown in the UK. Gedge worked out that roof tops in London, adding up to 24 times Richmond Park, could be transformed into wild gardens to attract birds and rare insects, including two threatened species of bumblebee. Most roofs would be on office and industrial buildings, but even garden sheds can host an eco-roof.
They can prevent flash flooding by absorbing heavy rainfall. They cool the building beneath in summer and insulate it in winter and help absorb dust and pollution, "Planting them is just good sense" says Gedge.
So he started a campaign, His first major victory was the Barclays building in London's Docklands. Gedge was manning a stall at an environment day when one of the Barclays' envionmental managers came over and asked how he could help. "Shove a green roof on your tower" the ecologist replied.
The Barclays building now has Europe's highest green roof, 31 floors up, where daisies, buttercups and other meadow flowers nod in the wind. Ladybirds, grasshoppers and a money spider have moved in - and a black redstart has been seen there.
Green roofs are now springing up everywhere, including the Laban dance centre and Stratford City, both in London. Housing minister Yvette Cooper recently suggested that people installing green roofs on their homes would get council tax breaks. Gedge himself now has little time to juggle or walk the tightrope. He's too busy talking to developers as a green roofs' consultant. He has also set up a charity, Living Roofs. " I am not a hippy", he muses. "I'm and eco-warrior wearing a suite"
Copied from Reader's Digest April 2007