Category: Events
Retrofit Your Building With a Green Roof
By Cristina Senjug, Partnership Manager, Next Level Stormwater Management
Homeowners Can Shape the Future,
Build Resiliency
When we talk about building a more resilient, sustainable city, it’s easy to picture large infrastructure projects or sweeping policy changes. But some of the most powerful climate solutions are within reach of homeowners, right now. A green roof is a simple yet transformative step you can take, turning the space atop the home you already own into living, breathing green infrastructure.
Transformed for Climate Resilience
In dense urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver, every square metre of green space counts. One of the most inspiring things about green roofs is that they’re not limited to new construction. Many existing buildings, from single-family homes to commercial properties, can be retrofitted to support a green roof. With the right design and structural assessment, your current roof can become a thriving ecosystem. Next Level Stormwater Management has a variety of green roof systems to choose from to suit your structure and design goals. Most popular is our lightweight, economical LiteN’Less® system which is easy, quick and clean to install and maintain. Often, BioBerms® with additional native plants can be added to this soilless system.
Whether it’s the extensive, soilless system or an intensive biodiverse system such as the Alpine Meadow or Flora Garden, all of NLSM’s green roofs provide a basket of benefits that will increase your daily enjoyment, property value and contribute to a healthier and more resilient environment.
Real Impact of a Green roof on Your Home:
- Stormwater Management: Green roofs soak up rainfall and reduce runoff that can overwhelm storm sewers. During heavy storms, this makes a measurable difference
- Flood Mitigation: By slowing and retaining water, green roofs help prevent the flash flooding that’s becoming more common with climate change and can affect your property
- Longer roof lifespan: Protection from UV exposure and temperature extremes can significantly extend roofing membrane life and save you money
- Improved Urban Biodiversity: Pollinators and birds all benefit from pockets of habitat high above the street. A single green roof can become a stepping stone in a larger ecological network
- Improved Air Quality Green roofs help filter pollutants
- Enhanced Aesthetic: Green roofs transform bare rooftops into living landscapes bringing colour, texture, seasonal change, and a direct, calming connection to nature into everyday urban life
What Do I Need to Know?
Can my roof support it?
Many homes can, but a structural assessment is required, especially for older roofs.
What roof slope is allowed?
Green roofs work best on flat to moderately sloped roofs (typically up to ~20° with stabilization).
Can it go over asphalt shingles?
No, a green roof cannot go on asphalt shingles because shingles contain many penetrations, degrade when constantly wet, and are not root‑resistant. Green roofs require a tightly sealed membrane system compatible with root‑barrier layers.
Will it leak?
No, it will not leak if installed over a water-tight waterproofing and root‑barrier system that prevent leaks.
What plants are used?
Sedums, native grasses, and drought‑tolerant plants that thrive in shallow soil and harsh conditions are most common. Rooftop food production is also possible with the right growing media and if the structure can support the extra weight.
Will it attract pests?
No. A well‑designed green roofs does not attract pests and often support beneficial insects.
What are the costs and maintenance?
Costs vary by plantings, size of green roof and ease of access. Maintenance involves routine inspections and weeding.
TO Wants You To Go Green
If you’re in Toronto, the City will support your retrofit through the Eco-Roof Incentive Program.
Toronto’s Green Roof Rebate helps you build your home’s resiliency while helping the city reach its climate and sustainability goals.
To learn more on how to navigate and apply for the rebate, read NLSM’s blog.
Vancouver’s Practical Green Roof Guide
Next Level can walk you through Vancouver’s practical Rain City Green Roof Best Practices Guide that supports homeowners interested in implementing green roofs to help manage rainwater on site, to improve building resilience, and support urban biodiversity.
Vancouver encourages voluntary green roofs by offering design tools, plant lists, and real‑world examples that make it easier for homeowners to plan and build high‑performing systems with confidence.
Read NLSM’s blog with highlights on Vancouver’s Rain City Green Roof Best Practices Guide.
Your Roof – Part of the Climate Solution
Let’s help your green roof grow! Ready to explore what a green roof could look like on your building? The Next Level Stormwater Management team is here to help you take the next step.
Supplier of more than 2.5 Million SQFT Coast-to-Coast
Next Level Stormwater Management (NLSM) is Canada’s leading supplier of high performance rooftop retention and detention solutions such as LiteN’Less™, StormCap™, Alpine Meadow and SpongeBase™. NLSM’s team has more than 90 years of combined industry experience and service. Contact NLSM by email or phone (416) 637-5772.
Celebrating World Landscape Architecture Month
By Cristina Senjug, Partnership Manager, Next Level Stormwater Management
Every April, landscape architects across Canada join colleagues around the world to celebrate World Landscape Architecture Month (WLAM).
This is a time to recognize the important work landscape architects do to help design many of the outdoor spaces we use and pass through daily, from parks and neighbourhoods to campuses and city streets.
Working alongside urban planners, architects, and engineers, landscape architects help shape cities to be functional, sustainable, safe and welcoming.
Designing Gardens in the Sky
As Canadian cities grow denser through increased development and construction, landscape architects are essential in planning and designing resilient urban environments and responding to climate challenges such as urban heat, flooding, and biodiversity loss.
Green roofs are an exciting and innovative area of landscape architecture. Also known as vegetated roofs, green roofs transform unused rooftop spaces into vibrant, living ecosystems. They’re an example of how landscape architects combine ecology and hydrology to design thriving ecosystems to to provide environmental and social benefit. Through careful design and implementation, these vegetated rooftops manage stormwater, mitigate flooding, reduce urban heat, support biodiversity and restore much‑needed urban green space.
Next Level Stormwater Management is proud of our collaboration with landscape architects by consulting on and supplying millions of square feet of green roofs on hundreds of projects across Canada.
Below are recent aerial videos of some landmark green roofs.
Video of Biodiverse Green Roofs
Learn More about Landscape Architecture
Landscape architecture matters because it creates safe, healthy, and beautiful outdoor spaces where people, wildlife, and communities can thrive.
If you’re interested in landscape architecture where creativity and design blends with science and climate action, visit Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) or check out one of several accredited landscape architecture programs across the country.
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (MLA) | Vancouver, BC
UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL (MLA) | Montréal, QC
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY (MLA) | Calgary, AB
UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH (BLA/MLA) | Guelph, ON
UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA (MLA) | Winnipeg, MB
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (MLA) | Toronto, ON
Supplier of more than 2.5 Million SQFT Coast-to-Coast
Next Level Stormwater Management (NLSM) is Canada’s leading supplier of high performance rooftop retention and detention solutions such as LiteN’Less™, StormCap™, Alpine Meadow and SpongeBase™. NLSM’s team has more than 90 years of combined industry experience and service. Contact NLSM by email or phone (416) 637-5772.
By Cristina Senjug, Partnership Manager, Next Level Stormwater Management
Next Level’s Dr. Karen Liu, Green Roof Specialist along with Cristina Senjug, Partnership Manager are honoured to partake as trainers with the annual Earth Tending Green Infrastructure Training program and look forward to the next session in May 2026.
The Earth Tending program by SpruceLab is an initiative for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples in the GTA, blending Indigenous Knowledge with Western green infrastructure practices through hands-on, land‑based learning. The program builds skills and pathways into the growing green infrastructure sector while strengthening climate resilience through nature‑based solutions.
Part of the training includes a rare tour of CF Sherway Gardens’ North Expansion Green Roof.
Take a minute and enjoy the unfolding spring splendour of CF Sherway Gardens’ North Expansion green roof in the videos taken during the tours over the last couple of years. CF Sherway Gardens’ North Expansion features 9500 square feet of a soilless green roof system supplied by Next Level Stormwater Management and installed in 2014 and 2015.
Dr. Karen Liu field’s participant questions from Vancouver, BC
Next Level Stormwater Management team looks forward to more opportunities to learn and work together in the future.
Meegwetch to all participants, Gwen Lane and SpruceLab Inc. We feel privileged to work with you!
More Than 2.5 Million Square Feet Coast-to-Coast
NLSM is Canada’s leading supplier of pre-vegetated roofs such as the LiteN’Less™ and StormCap™ systems. We customize to local requirements. Offer warranty & maintenance support, provide stormwater calculations specific to location and building/roof type, stormwater test data & related innovative hydrologic modelling. Click here to get a quote or to design your next green roof.
Corporate Brochure | Vegetated Roofing Solutions | Stormwater Management Technologies
Next Level Stormwater Management products range from soilless extensive green roofs to intensive vegetated roofing systems, including specialized stormwater retention and detention, vegetated and non-vegetated systems.
See four (4) page corporate brochure for details.
Supplier of more than 2.5 M SQFT Coast to Coast
NLSM is Canada’s leading supplier of pre-vegetated roofs such as LiteN’Less™, Xeroflor® and StormCap™ systems. We customize to local stormwater and biodiversity requirements. Email or call (416) 637-5772 Ext 1.
NLSM Team Celebrates Award-Winning BTC Green Roofs
Next Level’s Sasha Aguilera, Design Ambassador and Sawsan Hlal, Estimating and Operations joined Dr. Karen Liu, Green Roof Specialist on the Broadway Tech Centre (BTC) in Vancouver, British Columbia on World Green Roof Day 2024.
Designed by Randy Sharp and Connect Landscape Architecture, this award-winning, LEED Platinum certified campus was built on a former brownfield. Four of the eight low-rise BTC buildings are covered with a total of 10,000 square metres of lightweight soilless vegetated roof systems. They have a combined water storage capacity of 460,000 litres, or more than 1,500 bathtubs of rainfall (based on 300 litres per bathtub). Every year, the four green roofs absorb 10 million litres of rainfall, equivalent to four Olympic sized swimming pools, feeding the plants and evaporating back to the atmosphere, thus diverting it from our stormwater infrastructure. This thin-layered system has a superior water retention-to-weight ratio. It is comprised of locally grown roll-out sedum mats with 8-10 species of drought tolerant sedum. System base layers include mineral wool and fleece as retention layers along with a drainage layer and root barrier.
BTC is winner of the Award of Excellence, Green Roof For Healthy Cities and the Design Excellence Award, CSLA
Download PDF of Case Study
Supplier of more than 2.5 M SQFT Coast to Coast
NLSM is Canada’s leading supplier of pre-vegetated roofs such as LiteN’Less™, Xeroflor® and StormCap™ systems. We customize to local stormwater and biodiversity requirements. Email or call (416) 637-5772 Ext 1.