Innovation Lab

We’re always striving to find better ways of doing what we do, we’ve partnered with University of Brighton and link up regularly with research colleagues from Switzerland to keep abreast of best practice. If you’ve got a project in mind, get in touch with us to see what opportunities we can help shape together.

University of Brighton Partnership

Since 2015 Organic Roofs and University of Brighton collaborated on a year-long ‘Knowledge Exchange Partnership’ to product test our Swiss-inspired lighweight alternative to thin sedum, with support from the Regional Growth Fund. We hired a full-time researcher who was supervised by our founder Lee, alongside renowned Circular Economy architect Duncan Baker-Brown and urban pollinator expert Dr Anja Rott.

Since completing the research, we’ve gone on to deepen and extend our research links with University of Brighton. We’re excited that both under-and post-graduate students now monitor our roofs for biodiversity and soil-composition. And we’re working with colleagues internationally (Switzerland and Mexico currently) to find new ways to promote cost-effective quality through the use of abundantly-available waste streams in the green roof sector.

HayBase Innovation

HayBase has become very popular with our clients and now forms around 50% of the company turnover: its main benefits include its light weight, the reduced amount and cost of engineered materials (replacing the lower 50% of substrate with locally sourced waste agricultural material hay/straw), and the greater resilience of the plants grown in this way.

While it does tend to be grassier over time for obvious reasons, and so does not suit every project, its perfect for those projects where weight and cost are key considerations – and of course where significantly reducing the footprint of the supply chain is part of the overall ethos.

Bright future

Looking ahead, we’ll continue to spread the message about the benefits of Circular Economy green roofs in our CPD for architects and specifiers, and deepening our research collaboration with staff and students at the University of Brighton.