LIFE CYCLE ENERGY AND COST ANALYSIS OF VERTICAL GREENERY SYSTEMS

Abstract

Recently there has been increasing concern for climate change which has brought about various innovations in greening the urban areas. Since the bare façades of the buildings have been an eyesore in the urban sector, greening of the exterior walls with vegetation has became one of the most innovative and rapidly developing fields. In Singapore as there is a constraint of land, vertical greenery system has been incorporated as a developing feature of architecture and ecological landscaping to contribute in the mitigation of Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Several studies have shown that, vertical greening system have a number of functions that are beneficial in terms of aesthetic, environmental and psychological well being of the people, but it is still not clear if vertical greening systems are economically sustainable or not. There has been some study in the past on Life Cycle Cost Analysis to determine the benefits of green roof, but none for vertical greenery systems.

In this comparative study of vertical greenery system, one type of support system and one type of carrier system have been evaluated in terms of initial costs, life cycle cost and life cycle energy costs. Interviews are conducted to gather information and BLCC software is used to compute the LCC. The outcome of this study shows that the LCC of the planter type carrier system is economically beneficial when energy cost is considered over the mesh type support system. This cost analysis findings could contribute towards the development of a standard framework for measuring cost effectiveness and increasing the collaboration with the local building industry to become sustainable.