Archive for April, 2012

Toronto: Atop The Green Roof Movement

Via Switchboard, an interesting article on Toronto’s leadership for green roofs: In January of 2010, Toronto became the first city in North America to require the installation of green roofs on new commercial, institutional, and multifamily residential developments across the city.  Next week, the requirement will expand to apply to new industrial development as well. […]

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Geostellar Plans Solar Power Map of Every Rooftop in the U.S.

Via Cleantechnica, news of a planned rooftop solar map of the U.S.: Distributed solar power goes wild! Geostellar has teamed its rooftop solar power analytic toolkit with the satellite imaging company GeoEye to help realize its grand plan to assess the solar energy generating potential of every rooftop in the U.S. With this tool in […]

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Green Roofs: No One-Size-Fits-All

Via Columbia’s State of the Planet blog, a report on green roofs: Green roofs – rooftops covered with a layer of vegetation–are getting a lot of credit for providing environmental benefits. They have been found to reduce storm water runoff from buildings, conserve energy by moderating rooftop temperatures, restore fragile ecosystems and beautify urban spaces. […]

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Green Roof At Massachusetts College Also An Athletic Field

Via EarthTechling, an article on a green roof initiative that also functions as an athletic field: The term ‘green roof‘ takes on a whole new meaning at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. The university is currently working on construction of a rooftop field atop a parking structure. Luckily for players who use the field, the structure will […]

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White Roofs: White Knights?

Via The Independent, an interesting article on the potential impact of white roofs: Painting roofs white and using light-coloured materials to surface roads and pavements would not only make cities cooler in summer, it would save the same amount of carbon as taking all the cars in the world off the roads for 50 years, […]

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Huge Rooftop Farm Is Set for Brooklyn

Via The New York Times, a report on a new large-scale rooftop farm set for Brooklyn: An old Navy warehouse in Sunset Park will be home to a hydroponic greenhouse of up to 100,000 square feet. The developer says it will be the largest such greenhouse in the country. Brooklyn is fast becoming the borough […]

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About This Blog And Its Author
As potential uses for building and parking lot roofspace continue to grow, unique opportunities to understand and profit from this trend will emerge. Roof Options is committed to tracking the evolving uses of roof estate – spanning solar power, rainwater harvesting, wind power, gardens & farms, “cooling” sites, advertising, apiculture, and telecom transmission platforms – to help unlock the nascent, complex, and expanding roofspace asset class.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy. Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation. He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”