World Examples

The Obama Administration are now implementing white roofs onto Federal buildings in the US. 
Since the 2009 appointment of Obama’s new Energy Secretary, Dr Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, he has been pushing the idea of white roofs. Secretary Chu directed all Energy Department offices to install white roofs during new construction, when replacing old roofs and whenever an installation is cost-effective over the lifetime of the roof.  The Energy Department (DOE) has 10500 buildings. The Federal government owns or leases 500000 buildings. That's a lot of white paint.
 Click here for a short video of Dr Chu on white roofs

The US Department of Energy
“Secretary Chu Announces Steps to Implement Cool Roofs at Department of Energy and Across the Federal Government”, July 19, 2010  
Click here
"Cool Roof Resources for Federal Agencies"
Click here


White Roofs compulsory in New York since January 2012.
The first page of the New York City regulation by which white roofs (they call it “cool roofs”) became law in January 2012, sets out their reasons clearly and makes interesting reading, see here.

Mayor of New York's cool roofs campaign recently passed 2.5 million sq foot of white roof.
NYCºCoolRoofs is a collaboration between the NY Mayor’s office, local volunteers and local businesses. As of April 2012 they have painted 2.5 million square feet of roofs white. Currently the lead sponsors are Con Edison and Google.
Click here for an article
Click here for the NYCºCoolRoofs website


White Roofs mandatory in California since 2005 on commercial buildings,
 
In California, white roofs have been mandatory since 2005 for new flat commercial roofs, and sloping roofs have been required to be at least cool colour roofs since 2008.

This second measure stopped short of requiring white on sloping roofs. People can still paint their sloping roofs white but the minimum requirement is Cool Colour technology paint which achieves higher reflectivities than normal paint of the same colour through the use of special pigments that reflect more sunlight in the range of wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye. While the reflectivities of cool paints are much less than for white paint, it at least is a step in the right direction.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California is shown in this article at a demonstration of cool colours technology.


Heat Island Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California - A US Dept of Energy lab


The pioneers of the white roofs idea for global warming mitigation and energy efficiency..
Click here


Global Cool Cities Alliance
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The Global Cool Cities Alliance has some leading researchers of the white roofs idea on its advisory panel. One of their initial programs has grown out of a Department of Energy grant to implement a Cool Roofs and Pavements Working Group which currently includes Mexico, India, Japan and the United States, as well as Brazil, South Africa and the private sector.
www.globalcoolcities.org/


European Union has funded the Cool Roofs Project EU
an education programme spanning the UK, Greece, Italy, and France.
 Click here for a short video explaining cool roofs EU


ASHRAE (American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers)
has introduced cool roofs into its Standard 90.1 (published 2010)


The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK)
has recommended the adoption of reflective roofs as one of three top geo-engineering measures for global warming reduction







Bermuda’s white roof tradition

                                
                                                         (Photos: www.obviousmag.org in Architecture)
White roofs have been a tradition in Bermuda (see above) for over 400 years and today are mandatory as a conservation measure to maintain the tradition. (Click here)