White Roofs is a simple idea that offers one of the fastest and lowest cost ways of helping reduce global warming by mimicking how the polar icecaps reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet, and because it lowers the temperature of roofs in the summer sun, buildings with air conditioning typically use less electricity.
In New Zealand, glaciers and snow lines have retreated significantly over the last 100 years. Six years ago, Ian Montanjees, who has degrees in engineering and architecture, and has worked in physics and as a hands-on builder, had a big goal – to make a positive contribution towards reducing global warming. He launched the New Zealand White Roofs Project to share the worldwide movement locally, backed by a depth of science.
Officially launching the project in October 2010, Montanjees set up a website, spoke to business people, and tried to raise awareness with councils about white roofs. He had some breakthroughs. Resene set up a 30% discount for people wanting to paint their roofs in cool colours. But Montanjees was working odd jobs to pay the bills while financing and pursuing his passion. 'Up to now, it's been voluntary and in my spare time. I funded it myself,' Montanjees said.
While Montanjees unfortunately didn’t get funding to keep the organisation running full-time, his goal is to see the white-roof trend spread to houses. His calculations conclude that 100 square metres of flat white roof cancels the global warming of roughly 10 tonnes of CO2 emissions, so if one third of New Zealand roofs were white, then that would equate to taking up to 70,000 cars off the road for the 20-year lifetime of the paint."
Sources
Houzz. White is the New Black in Eco-Friendly Roofs. 2016
Element Magazine. Clean technology: The white roof project. 2012