The Little-known “Dark Roof” Lobby May Be Making Cities Hotter

It started with a lobbyist’s pitch.

Tennessee Rep. Rusty Grills says a lobbyist proposed a easy thought: repeal the state’s requirement for reflective roofs on many business buildings. In late March, Grills and his fellow lawmakers voted to get rid of the rule, scrapping a measure meant to avoid wasting power, decrease temperatures and shield Tennesseans from excessive warmth. Grills, a Republican, mentioned he launched the invoice to provide customers extra alternative.

It was one other win for a well-organized lobbying marketing campaign led by producers of darkish roofing supplies.

Business representatives known as the rollback in Tennessee a wanted correction as extra of the state moved into a warmer local weather zone, increasing the attain of the state’s cool-roof rule. Critics known as it harmful and “misleading.”

“The brand new legislation will result in increased power prices and better heat-related diseases and deaths,” state Rep. Harold Love and the Rev. Jon Robinson wrote in a statement. 

It’ll, they warned, make Nashville, Memphis, and different cities hotter — notably in underserved Black and Latino communities, the place many wrestle to pay their utility payments. Related lobbying has performed out in Denver, Baltimore and on the nationwide degree. 

Tennessee state Rep. Rusty Grills, heart, is seen on opening day of the 2025 legislative session. After listening to from a lobbyist for a company that represents producers of dark-roofing supplies, Grills sponsored a invoice that loosened necessities in Tennessee to put in light-colored roofs on business buildings. Picture by Erik Schelzig / State Affairs

Business teams have questioned the decades-old science behind cool roofs, downplayed the advantages and warned of decreased alternative and unintended penalties. “A one-size-fits-all method doesn’t contemplate local weather variation throughout completely different areas,” wrote Ellen Thorp, the manager director of the EPDM Roofing Affiliation, which represents an business constructed totally on darkish supplies.

However the weight of the scientific proof is obvious: On sizzling days, light-colored roofs can keep greater than 50° cooler than darkish ones, serving to minimize power use, curb greenhouse fuel emissions and scale back heat-related diseases and deaths. One recent study discovered that reflective roofs might have saved the lives of greater than 240 individuals who died in London’s 2018 heatwave. 

At the least eight states—and greater than a dozen cities in different states—have adopted cool-roof necessities, in response to the Smart Surfaces Coalition, a nationwide group of public well being and environmental teams that promote reflective roofs, timber and different options to make cities more healthy.

Business representatives lobbied efficiently in latest months in opposition to increasing cool roof suggestions in nationwide power effectivity codes—the requirements that many cities and states use to set constructing rules.

The stakes are excessive. As world temperatures rise and warmth waves grow more deadly, the roofs over our heads have turn into battlefields in a consequential local weather warfare. It’s taking place because the Trump administration and Congress move to derail measures designed to make home equipment and buildings extra power environment friendly. 

Why Roof Colour Issues 

The precept is easy: Gentle-colored roofs mirror daylight, so buildings keep cooler. Darkish ones soak up warmth, driving up temperatures inside buildings and within the surrounding air. 

Roofs comprise as much as one-fourth of the floor space of main U.S. cities, researchers say, so the colour of roofs could make an enormous distinction in city areas.

Simply how sizzling can darkish roofs get?

“You may bodily burn your palms on these roofs,” mentioned Invoice Updike, who used to put in photo voltaic panels and now works for the Good Surfaces Coalition. 

Research after research has confirmed the advantages of light-colored roofs. They save power, decrease air con payments and scale back metropolis temperatures. They assist forestall heat-related diseases. And so they sometimes value not more than darkish roofs.

A study by the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory discovered {that a} cool roof on a house in central California saved 20% in annual power prices.

Howdy Goudey, Scientific Engineering Affiliate, Constructing Know-how and City Methods (BTUS), checks the degrees on an array testing equipment measuring a sort of Passive Radiative Cooling Movie, on the roof of Constructing 59, at Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory. Picture by Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab 

In a three-story rowhouse in Baltimore, Owen Henry found what a distinction a cool roof could make.

Dwelling in part of the town with few timber—and the place summer season temperatures typically climb into the 90s—Henry wished to trim his energy payments and keep cooler whereas working in his third-floor workplace. So in 2023, he used $100 value of white reflective roof paint to coat his roof.

Henry mentioned he and his spouse instantly noticed the indoor temperature drop. They decreased their electrical energy use—by 24%. 

Cool Roofs, Scorching Debate 

Recognized for its sturdiness, a black artificial rubber generally known as EPDM as soon as dominated business roofing. However in recent times it has been surpassed by TPO, a plastic single-ply materials which is often white and is best suited to satisfy the rising demand for reflective roofs.

Main EPDM producers—together with Johns Manville, Carlisle SynTec and Elevate, a division of the Swiss multinational firm Holcim—have fought in opposition to rules that threaten to additional diminish their market share.

Kurt Shickman, former govt director of the International Cool Cities Alliance, mentioned these corporations have the cash to rent top-notch lobbyists who know their manner round listening to rooms — and who’re on a first-name foundation with determination makers.

The EPDM business has paid for analysis that has asserted that the affect of cool-roof mandates is inconclusive, and that insulation performs an even bigger position in saving power than cool roofs. 

Employees in 2018 put in a brand new roof on the Rogers Centre, dwelling of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball crew. White roofs like these have been proven to scale back air con payments and decrease the temperature of out of doors air. Picture courtesy of the Vinyl Roofing Division of the Chemical Materials and Movie Affiliation

In an emailed response to Floodlight’s questions, Thorp argued that lots of the research cited to assist cool roof mandates miss necessary components, similar to native local weather variations, roof kind, tree cover and insulation thickness. 

And he or she pointed to a recent study by Harvard researchers who concluded that white roofs and pavements might scale back precipitation, inflicting temperatures to unexpectedly enhance in surrounding areas.

However Haider Taha, a number one skilled on city warmth, recognized a number of flaws within the Harvard research, stating, “The research’s conclusions fail to offer actionable insights for city cooling methods or policymaking.” 

A Combat Over Cool Roofs in Baltimore

When Baltimore debated a cool roof ordinance in 2022, Thorp’s group and the Asphalt Roofing Producers Affiliation (ARMA) lobbied onerous in opposition to it, arguing that darkish roofs are essentially the most environment friendly alternative in “northern climates like Baltimore.”

In chilly climates, business representatives word, cool roofs can result in increased winter heating payments. 

“Present analysis doesn’t assist the adoption of cool roofs as a measure that can obtain improved power effectivity or decreased city warmth island,” Thorp wrote in a letter to 1 council member. 

A number of research present in any other case. They’ve concluded that reflective roofs do save power and funky cities by easing the “city warmth island impact”—the additional warmth that will get trapped in lots of metropolis neighborhoods as a result of buildings and pavement take in the solar. 

Researchers have additionally discovered that even in most chilly North American climates, the power financial savings from cool roofs throughout hotter months outweighs any added heating prices within the winter. 

Regardless of the opposition, Baltimore handed a cool-roof ordinance in 2023.

Opponents of cool roof necessities like Baltimore’s say they oversimplify a posh concern. In an electronic mail to Floodlight, ARMA Government Vice President Reed Hitchcock mentioned such guidelines aren’t a “magic bullet.” He inspired regulators to think about a “entire constructing method”—one which weighs insulation, shading and local weather along with roof colour to protect design flexibility and shopper alternative.

Henry, the Baltimore house owner, mentioned he thinks the town’s ordinance will assist all residents. “Phooey to any producer that’s going to attempt to cease us from sustaining our neighborhood and making it a nice place to reside,” he mentioned.

Business Will get Its Manner in Denver, Tennessee

Elsewhere, the business’s lobbyists have notched victories. They’ve lobbied efficiently in opposition to a cool-roof ordinance in Denver and in opposition to stricter requirements set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)—knowledgeable group that creates mannequin requirements for metropolis and state rules.

The present ASHRAE customary recommends reflective roofs on business buildings in U.S. local weather zones 1, 2, and three—the nation’s hottest areas. These embody a lot of the South, Hawaii, virtually all of Texas, areas alongside the Mexican border and most of California.

“We have been in a position to cease all of these … mandates from creeping into local weather zone 4 and 5,” Thorp mentioned in a latest interview. 

One other group headed by Thorp—the Coalition for Sustainable Roofing—labored with the lobbyist to suggest the invoice that eradicated Tennessee’s cool-roof requirement. 

That rule as soon as utilized to business buildings in simply 14 of the state’s 95 counties, however an replace to local weather maps in 2021 expanded the necessities to twenty extra counties, together with its most populous city space—Nashville.

As Mercury Rises, House owner Chooses a Reflective Roof

Brian Spear, a house owner in Tempe, Arizona, has lived within the Phoenix space for the reason that Nineteen Eighties, again when there have been fewer than 30 days a yr when the temperature reached 110°. Final yr, there have been 70 of these days—the best on document—adopted solely by 2023, when there have been 55 days of 110° plus.

Nowadays, summer season mornings begin out scorching, he says, “and I really feel like if you happen to go exterior between 10 and 4, it’s harmful.”

Spear says he’ll quickly change the getting old roof on an Airbnb dwelling that he owns. After weighing the standard considerations — value and aesthetics — he has chosen a floor that he believes will assist reasonably than hurt: a grey metallic roof with a reflective coating. 

“If somebody instructed me you couldn’t put a darkish roof on your home … I’d perceive,” he mentioned. “I’m all about it being for the frequent good.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the highly effective pursuits stalling local weather motion.