Greening the brown: sustainable retrofitting of UK houses through green walls and green roofs

The study identifies the scope of literature on the potential application of green walls and roofs in housing retrofits, mainly focusing on the UK context. Housing retrofit in the UK has become a major concern in the sustainability agenda due to the undeniable importance of retrofitting 30 million UK housing stock for energy efficiency. Further, housing retrofit has other key benefits such as reducing fuel poverty and improving health and comfort. The urban heat island effect has also become a matter of interest with the concern of global warming. Green walls and green roofs concepts have attracted climate enthusiasts' attention due to their perceived benefits. The study explores the scope of literature in the areas of green roofs and green walls to see the potential application into housing retrofit in the UK. A systematic literature review was carried out in popular databases for this purpose. Further, a grey literature review was also carried out. The findings show that there is a wide range of literature available on green wall and green roof topics. Further, it is noted that there is a clear potential for applying green wall and green roof concepts into housing retrofit, both at the building level and society level. However, there are only a few studies on the subject, looking at specific challenges of housing retrofit. Most of the studies were carried out in general buildings, without any specific focus on the unique challenges of applying the concepts in existing buildings. The study highlights the lack of unique studies of applying green wall and green roof concepts to housing retrofit.