Grass on a roof? Really?

A green roof is a layer of vegetation which covers the roof of a building. The roof is a living system: on top of a waterproof and root-proof layer is a layer of material for nutrition and drainage, above that a layer of soil, and above that a mixture of plants. The types of plants that are used and the thickness of the different layers depend on the type of roof.

Extensive green roofs, like ours, have a shallow layer of soil and are often planted with sedums. Sedums are a hardy, low growing type of succulent that can cope in all range of weathers and need very little maintenance. They’re very happy growing in the exposed rooftop environment. Because they’re lightweight, they usually don’t need additional structural support, so they can be fitted onto existing buildings as well as new ones.

Intensive green roofs have a wider range of plants (including trees!) in a deeper layer of soil, and can also accommodate paths, patios and lawns. These striking rooftop gardens are much more time and money intensive, and their weight means they need extra structural support. 

Why bother?

One of our most important reasons for installing a green roof was to replace some of the habitat we built over on the HQ site. Although this was a brownfield site, earmarked for a much larger building than our offices, we wanted to ensure it remained a sanctuary for wildlife. These days we see a lot of insects on the roof (including some very large bumblebees which occasionally stray into the office!) and these attract birds throughout the year.

The green roof also helps to insulate our building, reducing our energy costs and our carbon emissions. It helps to keep the building warm in winter and cool in summer – although how effectively it does this depends on how wet the roof is.

The green roof helps us to manage rainwater by reducing surface runoff from the roof. The water that does run off trickles down some recycled chains into a water store below the building and is then used to flush our toilets. 

As well as being good for the environment, our green roof helps to extend the life of our roof, by protecting the roof surface from changes in temperature and forming a barrier in front of the waterproofing.

Inspired?

Our green roof is managed by Green Roofs Naturally, a local company that specialises in extensive green roofs. There are now green roof installers all over the country, some of which are listed in the UK Green Roofs Directory. You can find a wide range of useful information on Living Roofs and the Green Roof Centre.

Back in early 2011, the markets were awash with speculation about a rise in bank base rates. This was picked up by BBC News and mortgage brokers the length and breadth of the land excitedly advised everybody to seek a new fixed rate deal to protect themselves from rising mortgage rates.

Only one problem: it never happened. Base rate remains rooted at 0.5% and economists now vie to come up with the longest dated prediction of when base rates might see some movement – 2015 is trending at present.

So here we are in early 2012. Many lenders, unable to raise sufficient funding from retail sources, are finding their cost of funding from the wholesale money markets edging up, with knock-on effects for their mortgage pricing. A different reason, but the same story: mortgage brokers urging everybody to seek a new fixed rate deal to protect themselves…

The rates at which wholesale money can be obtained may or may not remain elevated, but they are as likely to fall. What is more certain is that with each round of such speculation, there are fees to be earned. Those lenders that offered uneconomic mortgage pricing during 2011 – itself one of the behaviours that led to the crisis of 2007 – also now need to correct their pricing in order to boost their capital levels in advance of new international rules on minimum capital. 

What does this mean for Ecology, which offers a straightforward Standard Variable Rate (SVR) mortgage? All of our lending is funded 100% by the deposits made by our members, who buy into our environment-conscious lending policy. So our SVR is not under any pressure from rising wholesale money market rates. This isn’t just responsible business practice – it’s part of our commitment to mutuality in running our affairs.

Our deliberately simple funding model means we can give Ecology’s members a level of transparency that mainstream institutions simply can’t. We’re open about how we set our interest rates, and we’re open about how we use our savers’ money. Isn’t it time our big banks followed suit?

At Parity Projects we’re really excited about the opportunity to partner with Ecology Building Society to offer our Home Energy Masterplans at a discounted rate to its members.

Everyone who works at Parity is passionate about old houses and how they can be improved for the people who live in them.  Our philosophy is stay clear of conjecture and instead to undertake independent deep analysis of homes to find the best solutions. We believe that if homeowners are given easily understandable facts and figures about all the options available to them, they can make the right decisions. To date, we’ve helped over 500 households with our Masterplans.

The Masterplan is a detailed report on a house that follows a survey of the property and feedback from the occupier about how they use it and what they want to do to it. We don’t know any other service like it on the market and we’re constantly adding to it and improving it based on feedback. You don’t get an off the shelf report, but detailed analysis carried out by one of our energy consultants – we often end up doing completely new analysis for reports and enjoy the mental workout this provides! 

In our Masterplans we look at all your building components such as walls, roofs, floors and windows, the heating and hot water systems, lights and appliances.  We apply your actual use of the house, calibrate to your bills and then analyse everything we can. We can also model renewables, Feed in Tariffs, potential payments from the upcoming Renewable Heat Incentive and even planned works and extensions.  Essentially, if it’s to do with your house, we can probably model it.

While many energy efficiency measures offer great financial paybacks as well as reducing CO2 emissions, there’s usually a upfront capital cost to be stumped up. We think the Green Deal has the potential to effect many great changes, but we don’t believe it will be the only game in town. We also believe that for many people, working outside the Green Deal will allow them to achieve more bespoke solutions with a greater range of products and materials, lower capital costs and lower financing costs.

The option to add the capital cost of energy efficiency measure to your mortgage and to be rewarded with a lower mortgage rate strikes us a brilliant way of getting over the cost hurdle.

With debate raging about the likely success of the Green Deal, we want to spread the word that Ecology is a lender that rewards homeowners for saving energy and carbon. We’ve got a bold new look for the campaign and we’re working with a range of partners to tell as many people as possible about the benefits of improving the energy efficiency of their homes.

Our message is simple: you shrink your carbon footprint, and we’ll shrink your mortgage interest rate. Combined with a cosier home, lower energy bills and the warm glow of knowing you’re saving carbon, it’s a real incentive to live more sustainably.

But what if you need a little more inspiration? All of our houses are different, and with the wide range of energy saving measures available, it’s easy to feel daunted. That’s where SuperHomes come in. SuperHomes are older homes that have been refurbished for greater comfort, lower bills and reduced emissions (at least 60% less) and from 17 to 25 March, 65 SuperHomes will be open to the public.

The SuperHomes open to visit include Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian and post-war houses, so you’re bound to find a property to inspire you. Most have superior insulation, many have alternative heating sources and some produce their own energy. The SuperHomes website allows you to search the database for properties near you, or properties with particular green technologies, as well as prebooking a free place on a SuperHomes tour.

A visit to a SuperHome will leave you full of ideas about the steps you can take to save energy in your own home. And if you need mortgage finance to help you do that, our C-Change Retrofit mortgage discount could help. So why not make 2012 the year you shrink your carbon footprint at home?

I wonder what it feels like to let go of just short of a million pounds? I imagine Stephen Hester is enjoying the warm feeling that comes from doing the right thing – and the anticipation of another £3 million coming along shortly.

This fiasco highlights not just the issue of bankers’ bonuses, but more importantly, the fundamental inequality in our society, which corrodes community cohesion.

There will always be differences in remuneration: rewarding heightened levels of commitment is in itself a sound principle. There will always be those who are more willing to undertake training and qualifications, take responsibility for safeguarding other peoples’ jobs and take on legal liability – allowing others to choose not to do that or to fulfil other responsibilities.  

But beyond a certain level, the correlation with this principle breaks down. The scale of such payments has the potential to corrupt basic values. Those in receipt of such sums come to believe they are essentially superior to anybody who earns a fraction of their remuneration – including the teachers, nurses and bin collectors without whom our society could not function.

Of course, the bonuses can themselves be directed for social good, depending on the spending priorities of the recipient. They might all be donated to charity, invested in a social enterprise, or used to safeguard a wildlife space. But with our prevailing consumerist values, in private hands they are as likely to be used to purchase a couple more performance cars for the collection or invested in polluting projects abroad.

Excess income for a few encourages a wasteful attitude and leads to expenditure which is environmentally damaging. As a corollary, those in relative poverty often do not have the freedom to consider environmental impact as part of their purchasing decisions: their priority is making ends meet.

Remuneration at this scale becomes fundamentally undemocratic. Does anybody add value in an organisation to the extent suggested by a bonus of this size, beyond the contribution of other colleagues? After all, in an organisation as complex and extensive as RBS, all forward development will be very much a team effort. At an extreme level, we see the distortion of representation – such as in the US, where ability becomes less important a Presidential qualification than access to a billionaire or two.

The widespread public outcry at Stephen Hester’s bonus shows that there are limits to our tolerance of excess pay. But we have to ask ourselves if we are complicit in this distortion of reward, where money seems to be the only way to measure value and material possessions the yardstick for self worth. Is this really the route to a sustainable, equitable society?

Ecology Building Society staff, the Lord Mayor of the City of London and the Lord Mayor of Bradford

It seems the City is rarely out of the headlines at present, whether it’s the Corporation’s legal action against the Occupy London protests or the thorny issue of executive pay. As a financial institution, we’re a different breed to the majority of banks and businesses that are criticised for profiting at the expense of society and the environment. So why engage with the Lord Mayor?

We’d like to see a day when Ecology wasn’t a ‘different’ sort of financial institution: when mainstream banks put people and the planet first. To do this, we need to talk to people and organisations across the spectrum, to argue the case for a different model of finance. (And if you’re a customer of a mainstream bank, we’d urge you to do the same: ask your bank how they’re investing your money and what impact they have on the wider world. A group of engaged customers can have a real impact on how a business operates.)

So what did we say to the Lord Mayor? First of all, we explained our mission and our history. We believe it’s important to know that there is an alternative way to do finance that genuinely works – reaching £100m assets for the first time last year. Ecology shows that financial success and sustainable development don’t have to work in opposition.

Then, we explained how we actively seek to engage with our members, not just once a year at our AGM, but regularly, through our newsletters, social media and face to face on public platforms. We also highlighted our work in partnership with other ethical banks around Europe, sharing best practice and lobbying for change.

Did we make a difference? We think we’ve sown a seed. By raising awareness of what we do and how we do it, as well as some of our concerns about the current financial system, we hope we’ve encouraged the Lord Mayor to investigate more socially useful ways to do banking.

If you want to join the calls for responsible banking, we’d recommend checking out the Good Banking Forum and National Ethical Investment Week. And if you want to put your money where your principles are, why not join us?

So why not make 2012 the year you cut your carbon or become an eco-activist? If you’re looking for inspiration, our handy list of resolutions might help…

Resolution 1: Stop that draught!

Insulating your house is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to cut your energy use and shrink your carbon footprint. The Great British Refurb campaign has some great advice on simple things you can do to make your home more energy efficient, or for more inspiration try the Superhomes database of retrofit projects.

Resolution 2: Green your plate

Don’t limit your thinking to a healthy diet – why not go eco-friendly too? This article in The Ecologist offers some great tips on cutting your food miles and moderating your meat intake.

Resolution 3: Challenge yourself

Ever fancied jumping out of a plane or climbing a mountain for charity? Why not use your endeavours to save carbon instead of raising money? The DoNation helps you raise sponsorship with a twist – replacing cash with simple green actions to make a difference that money can’t buy.  

Resolution 4: Take on the big six

Rising energy costs and a lack of investment in renewables threaten our ability to heat our homes sustainably and affordably. Do your bit to challenge the status quo by signing up to Friends of the Earth’s Final Demand, a campaign to launch an inquiry into the power of the big six energy companies and ensure support for renewable energy produced by households, communities, councils and businesses.

Resolution 5: Put your money where your mouth is

If you’re angry at the behaviour of the big banks, make a positive decision to invest your money in the things you believe in. Save with Ecology and you know your money is used to support projects and properties that respect the environment, from ecological new-builds to community businesses. Find out more about the projects we support in our stories pages.

Resolution 6: Walk to work…

… Or if it’s too far, take public transport – you’ll still get the benefit of walking to and from the bus stop or train station. You’ll improve your fitness and cut your carbon emissions in one go – a two-for-one resolution!

Feeling inspired? Add your comments to let us know your plans for 2012.