The Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing is pleased to collaborate with Roofing Contractorto provide a monthly perspective about roofing and the environment. During the next 12 months, we will look at many aspects of roofing and sustainability, with a focus on how roofing contractors can become better equipped to participate and profit in the new green building market.
For our first column, we’d like to get right to the bottom line: Why are roofs so important to the environment? The one-sentence answer is, “There are two and a half million reasons!” That’s the surface area of re-roofs installed on nonresidential rooftops every year in the United States. And this vast area of re-roofing is virtually untouched by current green building programs, which tend to focus narrowly on new construction or major building retrofits. It’s also a lot of territory when you consider that the total footprint of buildings certified by the leading green building program (LEED) after more than 10 years is still less than what U.S. roofing contractors install in a single year.