Make Vegetated Roofing Easy With SOPREMA

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

What you need to know about green roofing and why all contractors should consider adding it to their list of services. 

In a recent RLW, Heidi J. Ellsworth is joined by Roxanne Miller, Tom Stuewe and Greg Raymond to discuss the multitude of economic and environmental benefits green roofs offer to building owners and communities. Together, this highly knowledgeable panel will help contractors understand how to position their company to do more vegetative roofing and why SOPREMA vegetated roofing systems can fit into any roofing business. 

Roxanne Miller is a landscape architect, horticulturist and a green roof specialist. She works with SOPRANATURE Business Development and has been at the forefront of many of SOPREMA’s sustainability initiatives. 

With more than 15 years of experience working with SOPREMA’s products, senior product manager Tom Stuewe provides the details behind green roofing products offered by SOPREMA. Joined by Greg Raymond who works with Ecogardens to design and install green roofs, you’ll get green roofing information from all angles.  

"More and more [green roofing is] being talked about, it's being discussed, it's being installed,” said Roxanne.  

In addition to its aesthetic appeal and energy-saving properties, green roofing also helps when used as a solution for mitigating storm water in urban environments. Most urban infrastructure is not designed to process all the rainwater it collects, especially when everything is an impermeable surface. 

“Storm water is only getting worse in terms of storm water management, and it's being required more and more by not only major urban cities, but even secondary urban cities as well,” said Greg. “So, don't shy away from [green roofing]. Embrace it. I tell a lot of roofing colleagues or contractors that if they can waterproof a building or install a roofing membrane, then they can definitely handle the intricacies of installing a green roof. It's not rocket science, it definitely requires some skill and some new learning, but I think it's an opportunity to expand their business and really looking at a market segment that's not going away.” 

In addition to their innovative green roofing solutions, SOPREMA is deeply engaged in developing sustainability initiatives within their communities. For instance, they have a company recycling program and employees who work at SOPREMA for 20 years get a tree planted on the property in their name.  

“It's an ongoing commitment, it's not just something that we take lightly, and we take it all the way through all of our processes,” said Tom. “Then in our manufacturing process, we're actually an ISO14001 certified manufacturer, which means that we incorporate sustainable and recycled projects into our manufacturing process. We not only recycle, but we repurpose materials as much as possible in our processes.” 

Read, Listen or Watch the entire conversation to learn more about SOPREMA’s vegetated roofing products and how you can incorporate them into your business. 

Learn more about SOPREMA in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.soprema.us.