Social Media
Associação Nacional de Coberturas Verdes (ANCV)
The Portuguese Association for Green Roofs, existing since 2015, is a non-profit organization, which aims to promote green infrastructure in cities, especially those that can be installed on buildings (new or pre-existing) such as green roofs, highlighting their enormous importance, and the numerous contributions they can give to the possibility to create healthy, sustainable, biodiverse and resilient urban territories.
Vision & Mission Statement
In the last decades, problems such as pollution, soil impermeabilization indexes, density and quality of buildings, energy inefficiency and loss of biodiversity, have been aggravated, at the same time that extreme (and increasingly frequent) climatic phenomena occurs, such as heat waves / drought and extreme precipitation phenomena. The evidence of many services that green roofs can bring to the urban environment makes them part of the environmental strategy of modern cities, already an obligation in cities like Copenhagen and highly encouraged by a number of worldwide governments. Rainwater retention and peak flood delay, thermal insulation, protection and increase of waterproofing life, creation of biodiversity niches, CO2 capture and oxygen production, associated with the improvement of the urban landscape and the appreciation of the buildings, are part of the set of arguments of undeniable value that make it unquestionable the need to introduce the green roofs in the cities, demonstrating the urgency to consider vegetation as a mandatory building material.
National Research
The Fifth Facade Project (PQAP), a project created by Paulo Palha, President of the Portuguese Association for Green Roofs (ANCV), is a project between ANCV and the Porto City Council. Its objective is to define the best way to include green roofs in the environmental and urban strategy of the city of Porto. The project began in August 2016 and was attended by a large group of people from different departments of the Porto City Council, as well as different universities, foreign municipalities, the European Federation of Green Roofs and Walls Associations, and the World Green Infrastructure Network, among other institutions. PQAP represents an important step in the history of the Green Roofs movement in Portugal, since it’s the first time that a City Council manifests its desire to include green roofs in the urban planning documents of the city. The project was also essential to give ANCV executive capacity and increasing visibility. On the other hand, it symbolizes the interdisciplinary character of the association, since it has been necessary to promote the intervention of research groups, companies, and municipalities; exactly the network created by ANCV.