GAF, North America’s largest roofing and
waterproofing manufacturer and a Standard Industries company, recently launched the GAF Cool Community
Project
— a pioneering initiative designed to assess and mitigate the impacts of the
urban heat island effect. GAF has partnered with Climate
Resolve, the Global Cool Cities
Alliance, local community organizations and
municipal government partners to conduct a multi-phased research project to
better understand the impacts urban heat and cooling solutions have on the
livability of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacoima.
Just north of downtown LA, Pacoima doesn’t get the moderating effect of the
nearby ocean — leaving it a scorched inland inferno uniquely hotter than the
surrounding region. Pacoima, like many underserved communities, suffers thermal
inequities disparate from neighboring
communities
that are better equipped to face them.
The initiative will benchmark and monitor the surface and ambient air
temperatures in the community and evaluate quality-of-life indices. Once a
baseline is established, GAF will apply its
StreetBond
reflective pavement coating to a 10-square block area of Pacoima to better
understand what cooling interventions can work at scale in a warming world.
The urban heat island effect
Urban temperatures are
expected
to skyrocket as the planet warms. Urban areas become islands of high
temperatures exceeding that of outlying areas,
with daytime temperatures ranging 1-7°F hotter than surrounding non-urban areas
and nighttime temperatures 2-5°F warmer. This increases energy consumption —
creating a sinister cycle of more emissions through energy expended for cooling,
as well as heat-related illnesses and air quality issues.
The Earth’s surface reflects about 30
percent
of sunlight back into the atmosphere.
Albedo, the ability of a surface to
reflect heat, is exceptionally low in the asphalt ubiquitous to urban areas —
which only reflects 10 percent of
sunlight.
The remaining 90 percent is absorbed and re-emitted as heat throughout the day
and well throughout the night. The more hard, unreflective surfaces an area has,
the more heat is absorbed.
Scaling up solar-reflective solutions
GAF’s StreetBond reflective coatings can reflect upwards of 60 percent of
sunlight,
essentially bringing the solar budget back into balance with the Earth’s
surface.
As Climate Resolve Executive Director Jonathan Parfrey told Sustainable
Brands™, streets have been treated with reflective coatings in the past,
but never at such a scale or concentration as the Cool Community Project
proposes. This project is the first time coordinated, multi-tiered
heat-mitigation solutions have been applied at a community scale.
“We're excited,” Parfrey said. “We would like to have a proof-of-concept and
have other cities all across the United States come out to Pacoima and see what
we've accomplished.”
Aside from applying reflective coating to asphalt and concrete, GAF and its
partners will apply coatings to driveways, elementary school parking lots and
playgrounds, a rec center and a park. An artist has even been commissioned to
paint a mural with reflective coatings.
After surface coating is complete, a baseline will be established by comparing
results in the community receiving interventions with that of a control
community receiving none. They will look at empirical evidence — such as reduced
ambient heat — as well as qualitative evidence, such as time spent playing
outside and comfort levels.
Once baselines are established next year, the initiative will explore installing
GAF cool roof products on buildings — as well as further engaging community
stakeholders to explore other opportunities for heat mitigation, such as
vegetation and shade structures.
“This is an important project that is relevant not just to big cities like LA,
but cities all over the United States and the world,” said Jeff Terry, VP of
Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability at GAF. “If we can help create
examples and models of ways in which we can address climate, it’s an important
project.”
Terry reported that many pilot projects have been done on a smaller scale, all
of which have proved that surface coatings can improve cooling effects. This
larger project ties together prior research, scaling it up, and adding a
quality-of-life component measured across an entire suburb — the first time that
layering of phases and social science segments has been done, Terry says.
Community engagement is key
Social justice and community engagement are key to the initiative's planning
process. Urban communities hard hit by heat are often plagued by environmental
justice
issues,
legacy redlining, poor funding and tax revenue, etc. This must be kept in
account when investing in mitigation infrastructure, with the utmost care not to
take a patronizing approach to CSR. The key to avoiding the latter is deep
community ownership, said Maria Koetter, Executive Director of the Global
Cool Cities Alliance.
“We don't want to just drop in, drop out; so, we build relationships with local
nonprofits and community members that can be key stakeholders and champions of
these projects,” Koetter said. “Having local partners is important in giving it
validity.”
Koetter pointed to grassroots organizations as the frontrunning, sustainable
drivers for meaningful climate resiliency. Climate Resolve has a long-running
relationship with Pacoima and the surrounding neighborhoods. It recognized it
needed more resources to scale effective cooling solutions in the Northeast
Valley, so it was eager to partner with GAF and other community organizations
dependent on community engagement. Understanding the value of a tribe, Climate
Resolve in turn rallied Pacoima Beautiful
and Urban Semillas to work as outreach
partners for the project.
“It’s important to take a public-private approach in work like this,” Terry
said. “We don’t think we can do this work by ourselves. It’s really about
working and learning with others, so we can figure out the best solutions to
bring forward … We’re not just interceding in their community for a
year-and-a-half and leaving — we really want to work in partnership with the
residents there.”
Avoiding cookie-cutter “solutions” to local climate crises is key, Parfrey said.
Each climate solution must meet the needs of the community. For some
communities, planting
trees
may be the most effective bet to hedge against extreme heat. But in California,
where drought has killed 129 million
trees
in the last decade, tree planting may not deliver the best results. And though
tree planting is an effective hedge against heat, that’s a 15-year proposition,
Koetter pointed out — making short-term interventions such as reflective
coatings necessary.
Though solutions can't be copy-and-pasted, Koetter believes the Cool Community
Project will be instrumental as a data source to inspire local solutions for
other communities.
“We hope other communities can look at this as a source for initiating their own
work at scale,” she said. “This needs to advance through policy at a
programmatic level. It shouldn't be a pilot — it should be a program. … That's
how we'll really encourage communities to build resilience to heat.”
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Christian is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and outdoor junkie obsessed with the intersectionality between people and planet. He partners with brands and organizations with social and environmental impact at their core, assisting them in telling stories that change the world.
Published Apr 18, 2022 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST