Green roofs

Our Mission

Cambridge Mothers Out Front is moving forward to bring green roofs to our city! We envision a time when buildings in our city will have pollinator gardens, meadows, and farms on their roofs. To achieve this vision, the City Council needs to fully support the revised Green Roofs ordinance that requires vegetative or biosolar – solar panels and vegetation combined  – on rooftops of new construction of buildings 25,000+ square feet.

Watch Our Video

See our shared vision come to life. From soaring shots of Cambridge’s current black, heat-emitting rooftops to the images of vibrant green rooftops in many other U.S. cities, we see that magnificent possibilities abound!

Learn More

The many benefits of green roofs convinced us to make #GreenRoofsCambridge our premier campaign and guide us as we make this happen. Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York City, Denver, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon are among the many cities with green roofs. It’s long past time for Cambridge to create green roofs too. 

Here is a summary of these outstanding benefits:

Living rooftop plantings:

• Absorb carbon dioxide and clean pollutants from the air
• Cool urban heat islands
• Preserve buildings’ energy through rooftop insulation
• Reduce stormwater flooding 
• Provide habitat for pollinators
• Can be used for gardens and farms to grow local crops and address food insecurity
• Beautify our city by adding to its green space
• Increase people’s well-being and workers’ productivity

Biosolar, combining vegetation and solar panels:

• Provides clean, renewable energy that lessens our dependence on carbon emitting fossil fuels
• Increases energy efficiency by adding vegetative layer of rooftop insulation
• Lengthens the roof’s longevity, and the roof requires less maintenance 
• Solar panels shade and cool the vegetation 
• Vegetation boosts the solar panels’ production by up to 16%

 Resources

Click the links below to access our green roof resources:

• Printable Flyer: Green Roof Benefits
• Fact Sheet: Green Roofs in Cambridge: Timeline & Talking Points