European project to support rooftop greenhouses projects

The Institute of Environmental Science and Technology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) is launching an open call to support rooftop greenhouse projects, in the framework of the European project GROOF.

14/06/2019

ICTA-UAB is one of the partners of this project that aims at reducing CO2 emissions in the construction and agricultural sectors by combining energy sharing and local food production.

Submit your application before the 30th of June 2019 and benefit from the expertise of European specialists in agriculture and construction. Infos: www.groof.eu

Facing the challenges of global warming, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a major international concern. In addition, in an increasingly dense urban context, the possibility of an off-ground cultivation is a key solution for our future. A viable economic model is emerging in urban agriculture, greenhouse growing on rooftops.

Therefore, GROOF - Greenhouses to reduce CO2 on Roofs - has recently released an open call in order to foster rooftop greenhouses projects. The heat and the CO2 produced by the human activity can be recycled in rooftop greenhouses to grow plants, which make it possible to obtain a good quality local food, while meeting environmental and climatic challenges.

The selected projects will benefit from a personalized coaching provided by GROOF specialists in the fields of construction, energy, agriculture and socio-economics. During this coaching, the GROOF specialists will transfer keys for a fruitful project implementation and help applicant to develop innovative solutions.

This open call is addressed to anyone interested in the development of a rooftop greenhouse project, and who is based in the North-West Europe area (United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, South Germany, North France) or Spain. It is only necessary to be the owner of a flat roof building or to know someone with an available roof.

Xavier Gabarrell, researcher responsible at the UAB, explains that the project "is an opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of combining food production with the production of energy through new models of photovoltaic panels".

This project is coordinated by the CDEC (Conseil pour le Développement Economique de la Construction), with the support of the INTERREG NWE programme, and carried out with eleven partners (public and private) from Luxembourg, France, Belgium, Germany and Spain.

Each partner brings valuable skills and knowledge to the project such as construction process and methodology, building energy management, urban agriculture development, knowledge of plants and cropping systems, entrepreneurial skills, socio-economic skills, etc.

The European project supports four pilot projects of rooftop greenhouses, implemented by GROOF partners, to showcase the efficiency and durability of the models proposed for different types of buildings and greenhouses.

GROOF's goal is thus to support developers of rooftop greenhouse projects by providing them with personalized advisory. In the long term, this project will reveal the benefits of rooftop greenhouses to reduce CO2 emissions to policy makers and facilitators, and thereby unlock the environmental policies of cities in the Northwest European area and Spain to promote the development of rooftop greenhouse projects.