Vancouver is staking itself out as North America’s hub for green walls and green roofs thanks to an upcoming international conference and four companies that are based here and specialize in this niche.
Vancouver is home to Green over Grey Living Walls and Design Inc., Mubi, GSky Plant Systems Inc. and Urban Foliage.
All are likely to be at the eighth annual green roof and wall conference, which will take place November 30 through December 3 at the Vancouver Convention Centre – a structure that itself has a green roof as well as a bee colony that provides honey for use inside the building.
“This is an example of Mayor Gregor Robertson wanting to create green capital in the city of Vancouver and export it across North America and eventually the world,” said Randy Sharp, who is a principal of Sharp and Diamond Landscape Architecture Inc.
About 10% of Sharp’s business is creating either what he calls green facades (essentially climbing plants on a trellice) or living walls, which are walls in which the plants are actually embedded in the structure.
That’s double what it was a year ago.
Some of that business likely stemmed from his successful job helping produce, along with GSky, the first modular living wall installation in North America at the Vancouver Aquarium’s new Aquaquest-Marilyn Blusson Learning Centre.
In late October, Green over Grey completed what is thought to be the largest and most biologically diverse outdoor green wall in North America.
The 3,000-square-foot wall on the Semiahmoo Library includes more than 10,000 individual plants representing more than 120 unique species and should be fully grown by spring 2011.
Principal Richard Poiraud told Business in Vancouver that he and business partner Mike Weinmaster’s two-year-old company has more than doubled its revenue last year to over $100,000.
After doing several residential patio projects, the men snagged their first living wall project in early 2009 when ING Direct contracted them to do two interior walls at the financial institution’s office at the corner of Howe and West Pender streets.
The duo also worked on a living wall at a Victoria café. They plan to do more at:
- the new Legacy Liquor Store in the Millennium Water development;
- the Westin Bear Mountain Victoria Golf Resort and Spa; and
- in West Vancouver’s Park Royal Shopping Centre.
“There is more and more interest when it comes to green technology and the growing interest in green roofs and walls is part of that. You see more of it in Vancouver,” Poiraud said.
Indeed, University of British Columbia (UBC) students will notice a green facade on the west wall of the campus’ future Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability, when that under-construction building is complete in spring 2011.
That centre will eventually also have an indoor living wall once money becomes available, said UBC’s associate director of sustainability, Alberto Cayuela.
All this growth in the living wall sector has been enough to convince Mubi owner Genevieve Noel that she must develop new technologies in order to thrive.
Noel founded her business in Vancouver three years ago.
Like Green over Grey, she started by doing residential installations.
She got a break when the Westin Wall Centre in Richmond contracted her to produce a 1,000-square-foot living wall that incorporated many native B.C. plants.
But, unlike Green over Grey, Noel sprouted a new revenue stream when she developed proprietary technology for green wall panels. Representatives at Germany’s Sempergreen contacted her and wanted to sign a licence agreement to manufacture and distribute those panels in Europe.
Nearly 90% of her sales remain from business in North America, but Noel has continued to innovate in an effort to diversify her business.
She recently developed a plant system called herban.
Instead of a traditional living wall, Noel’s herban system incorporates modular pods that attach to each other.
The advantage to this kind of living wall is that it is easy for condo dwellers to hook it on their balconies without sacrificing square footage.
Were a home or business owner to want a traditional 100-square-foot living wall, Noel estimated that it would cost about $10,000 including plants and a year of maintenance. The price for 100 square feet of her herban wall? About $2,000, although that does not include the plants.
“I’m developing new product designs for more market segments,” Noel said. “I want to stay ahead of the curve.”