Sustainability of Living Wall Systems Through An Ecosystem Services Lens

The use of plants for shading the buildings having a pleasant ornamental effect is known for a long time. During the last decade, ecosystem services approach opens theway to analyze themultiple advantages that greening, included livingwalls, can provide to the urban environment. Regarding living walls, the main environmental benefits are heat island effect mitigation, noise pollution insulation, heating and cooling energy demand reduction, absorption of particulate matters, and enhancement of biodiversity. Living walls can also have a role in ameliorating physical and mental health and well-being and can be included in the urban horticulture initiatives both for food production and education purposes. Needing for recycled and low energy products for a greater environmental sustainability is also required in living wall systems (LWS). Therefore, the life cycle approach is considered as useful. The chapter is a critical reviewaimed at analyzing the environmental, social and economic sustainability of LWS for urban design. The multidisciplinary approach, carried out by agronomists and architects, allows to understand the problems and solutions for the improvement of the use of these systems in our cities. The research group is working on sustainable green wall systems that provide architectural and environmental benefits through the use of independent modular units, renewable materials, environmental friendly substrates, and native plants.