The study was centred around the university’s own Sustainability Hub, an unremarkable pre-1970s building on the university campus. It was conducted by academics associated with Plymouth’s Sustainable Earth Institute.
The researchers compared how effectively two sections of its walls retained heat. Despite being on the same west-facing elevation, one of the walls had been retrofitted with an exterior 'living wall' façade comprised of a flexible felt system with pockets for soil and planting. The other part of the wall was left plain.
Following five weeks of measurements, the Plymouth researchers found that the amount of heat lost through the wall retrofitted with the living system was 31.4 per cent lower than that of the unchanged wall. They also discovered that daytime temperatures within the flora-bestowed section of the wall remained more stable than the area with exposed masonry, requiring less energy to heat it.
The study is among the first...