Why we should build for wildlife as well as people

• News & Highlights

From green roofs to bee bricks and hedgehog drawers, there are plenty of ways to make sterile buildings more accommodating to nature.

Every time we build something, another patch of ground that could have been a home to wildlife disappears. But Dusty Gedge argues that, in many cases, we can return that patch of ground to nature – up on the roof.

Gedge, president of the European Federation of Green Roof and Living Wall Associations, is a long-time advocate of carpeting flat roofs with soil, mosses, plants and even ponds. Some studies have suggested that green roofs on taller buildings might be exposed to too much wind or solar radiation for some species. When I ask Gedge what he makes of this, he says, “I just want to scream.”