London 2012 blog

Some weeks ago we issued an internal request to London 2012 staff to come up with suggestions for improving our in-house green credentials. We had many good ideas put forward: mostly around waste recycling, energy saving and travel and these will be fed into our emerging ‘Green Office’ policy.

In fact this appeal received more feedback than pretty well all other intranet posts to date. Either that means we have a lot of improvement to do, or we have a lot of green conscious employees. I think it is a bit of both.

Another reason was the incentive reward: a visit to the nature reserve on our building’s roof – the 33rd floor! Luckily we did not plan this for last Friday; today’s visit was fine and not too windy. Apart from enjoying panoramic views across the city, we were treated to an ecology tour of the green roof plot by local expert and ‘Living Roof’ expert, Dusty Gedge.

This thin mat of rubble and soil is now home to some 40+ wild plants (many self-seeded) and an increasing range of small invertebrates – grasshoppers, hoverflies, spiders and beetles… Even some migrant birds have been seen here and peregrine falcons regularly use the roof as a feeding perch.

Green roofs (sometimes referred to as brown roofs) are becoming an increasingly important part of urban conservation design. As more and more brownfield sites are being redeveloped, ecologists are seeking new ways of providing habitat for some of the more unusual flora and fauna of our city. The thin soil, fast-draining and exposed conditions on green roofs enable certain of our less common species to thrive in relative safety

There are some interesting lessons here for the Olympic Park designers, so we can expect a few more trips upstairs over the coming months.