Living walls are a growing trend, particularly in urban environments. This is rightfully so. Living walls offer several wonderful benefits that can improve your life and your business. For example, they will improve health and well-being for you and your employees. What’s more, they help to protect the environment. For these reasons, you should consider installing at least one living wall in your place of business.
Living walls aid in improving air quality, increasing energy efficiency, and reducing energy costs. Additionally, they limit noise and facilitate water management. Wouldn’t these benefits improve daily life for you and your employees? Let’s take a closer look at five distinct benefits provided by living walls.
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1. Improved Air Quality
Living walls, or green walls, work in a number of ways to improve air quality. They create natural humidity through evapotranspiration. This is a process by which the plants on a living wall release water vapor into the air. This cools indoor air during the summer months. Further, it restores optimal moisture to heated spaces during the wintertime.
Additionally, green walls act as natural air filters. That is, they cleanse the air of toxins and diminish allergen-carrying particles. They also provide an infusion of oxygen, reducing carbon dioxide levels.
2. Increased Cost-Efficiency
Energy efficiency is vital today. To this end, green walls can affect your heating and cooling costs. This is true regardless of climate, location, or type of living wall. Providing an additional layer of insulation that traps air, living walls maximize the benefits of their cooling effect. This makes it possible to reduce air cooling costs during hot weather. According to the American Society of Landscape Architects, “Through shading, green walls can lower temperatures in summer and reduce energy costs by 23 percent.”
3. Reduced Noise Levels
While noise reduction is one of the less familiar benefits associated with living walls, it’s still an important one. These walls reduce noise levels in buildings by naturally blocking high-frequency sounds. If your business is on a busy street or in the city, living walls will block traffic noise and give you a degree of quiet. What’s more, they work in conjunction with supporting structures that limit low-frequency noise. The larger the surface area of the living wall, the more likely it is to optimize noise reduction.
4. Food Production
Living walls are a great resource for urban farmers. That’s because they provide a surface to grow food for local consumption. This is true not only in urban areas, but in rural and suburban areas as well.
5. Water Management
In general, living walls can serve as a water buffer. That is, they can help with storm water management when they are used on a building and have the right coverage of vegetation. For example, depending on the type of living wall, it is possible to harvest excess rainwater for green wall irrigation. This would allow for the conservation of water.
What’s more, by absorbing rain water, they can help to stabilize the groundwater level as well. For example, during times of heavy rains, they can reduce peak loads on a sewage system. This can diminish the risk of flooding.
Living Walls Will Transform Your Life
Living walls will transform not only your space, but your life as well. They improve air quality, increase energy efficiency, and reduce noise. What’s more, they provide a way to grow food and help with water management. In conclusion, you can achieve sustainable outcomes with living walls, so consider maximizing their distinct benefits in your business.