Citizens’ willingness to pay for green roofs

Green roofs are widely recognized as powerful nature-based solutions, which can provide multiple benefits for the sustainable development of urban areas (e.g., pluvial flood mitigation, thermal building insulation, biodiversity increase, air pollution reduction, etc.). Although the potential benefits of these tool have been widely investigated, the social awareness and citizens’ willingness to pay for green roof, on both private and public buildings, have not been assessed yet, especially in the Mediterranean areas. Citizens’ perception and opinion are particularly relevant to support the decisions of policy makers and urban planners and could determine the actual implementation of green roofs in the urban environment. In this work, we investigated the interest and willingness to pay for green roofs in the region of Sardinia (Italy), analyzing the outcomes of an anonymous online survey, distributed via the mailing list of the University of Cagliari and social media. Results highlights a realistic perception of the citizens regarding the most common environmental issues (i.e., urban flood, increase of temperature, energy consumption, air pollution and lack of green spaces) and the potential benefits of green roof installation. Sardinian citizens showed high interest in having green roofs on public buildings, with an average willingness to pay of about 35 euro per person every year. On the other hand, the interest and willingness to pay for green roof installation on private buildings is limited, due to the high construction and maintenance costs and to the preference for photovoltaic systems as roof coverage.
The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023)