Experimental project of a green facade: monitoring and economic evaluation

The wide spreading of vertical greening systems brought to the development of new systems and technologies able to improve urban areas quality. Several benefits derive from the installation of these systems: energy savings for air conditioning during summer, thermal comfort improvement indoor and outdoor, urban heat island mitigation, biodiversity increase, protection of building facades with consequent reduction of maintenance needs. The benefits should be balanced with installation costs; in general, variations depend on the system chosen, material used as supporting structure for plants, plant species used, location of building. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the economic sustainability of a vertical greening system installed on an office building located in Genoa (Italy), by means of a cost benefit analysis. In order to verify the reliability of the results obtained for the different scenarios assumed, a risk analysis using the Monte Carlo method.