Daiwa House Group promotes rooftop gardening designed to alleviate the urban heat island effect, upgrade a building's energy-saving performance, and improve green spaces.
Our Central Research Laboratory and Daiwa Kosho Lease cooperatively developed the folded-plate roof greening system, which is lightweight, easy to process and maintain, and low in cost. The system is applicable to metal folded-plate roofs like the one a factory, office, store, or rental apartment might have. Now the Retail and Wholesale facilities divisions of Daiwa Shoko Lease have introduced the system on their own property (see picture), and are conducting final performance verification tests, etc. toward its official release.
Folded-plate roof greening system on a store
As part of our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, we have joined a three-year project plan called Technology Development Project to Prevent Global Warming, run by the Ministry of the Environment since FY-2004 in the form of industry-government research with Nara Prefecture.
This research focuses on biomass energy to substitute fuel oil as clean energy, and process organic wastes (biomass resources) such as raw garbage and bean curd refuse with water/heat treatments using subcritical water,* and mix the obtained carbide and solvent (waste vegetable oil) to generate slurry fuel as an alternative energy in place of heavy oil. (See flow chart below.) If this technology can be utilized, we will receive benefits from the substitution effects of fossil fuels and CO2 emission reduction associated with waste disposal.
* Subcritical water: High-temperature, high-pressure water that allows effective extraction and intense hydrolysis.
To reduce energy consumption, our Tohoku factory experimentally installed air conditioning and ventilation systems that use natural energy in an office building under construction.
The system uses naturally occurring energy such as ground heat, solar heat, and wind directly for air conditioning and ventilation. For example, a tunnel running underground takes in outside air and pumps cold air in summer and warm air in winter into the building because the temperature deep in the ground stays constant throughout the year. Also, the air entering a the room can be circulated using solar heat and wind power to create a comfortable, warm environment.
We intend to evaluate and analyze the actual warmer indoor environment and effects of reduced energy consumption, and explore the deployment of this technology.
