Vertical Green Structures to Establish Sustainable Built Environment: A Systematic Market Review

Abstract

Vertical Green Structures (VGS) emerged as a building skin Nature-based Solution (NbS) aside from green roofs. The motivation underlying this VGS exploitation is fast urbanisation and the need to limit both land consumption and vegetation loss. These structures can provide several ecosystem services like air purification, biodiversity enhancement, and noise reduction. Although the usage of VGS offers different versatile and multi-scalar benefits in the built environment, they still need to respond to all the requirements of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Over the last decades, technologies of VGS have been developed and new product types have become available in the market. This paper presents the overall development and benefits of VGS, and aims to provide a taxonomy by considering a systematic and interdisciplinary approach. The current market overview analyses and compares different aspects (i.e., environmental and economic features) of the products for a better understanding of the current state-of-the-art—from single component to system scale. The findings of this review lead to some suggestions to enhance the level of sustainability and increase the potential benefits. They look at both research and practice requirements to orient the users in selecting the most optimal VGS solution available in the market.