Should green roofs join solar panels in Future Homes Standard?

With the forthcoming Future Homes Standard expected to mandate solar panels on most new-build homes in England, isn’t it a good time to consider what could be achieved if green roofs were brought into scope too?

More than 70% of domestic properties are estimated to have flat roofs of some kind. The government is pushing for 370,000 new homes to be built each year; if just 10% of these had green roofs on garages, for example, it could deliver more than 650,000m2 of new living roofs each year – adding roughly a fifth to the overall square meterage of green roofs in the UK.

Obviously the numbers aren’t quite that clear cut but it does demonstrate how transforming just a small proportion of domestic flat roofs could deliver big rewards. And that’s before commercial and industrial buildings, or public infrastructure, are considered, which account for the lion’s share of green roof installations in the UK.

Click here to continue reading this article in the Autumn ’25 issue of Greenscape magazine.