It’s here! ‘Gray to Green’ Scheme Will Open on the 15th of February

Greening up the facade of your home, apartment block, shop or office is about to get easier thanks to the ‘Gray to Green’ Scheme. By applying for this scheme, owners of houses, apartments, shops and offices will be able to apply for a grant of up to €10,000 to green up the exterior of their buildings.

The ‘Gray to Green’ was first announced by Aaron Farrugia, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Planning, back in October.

To apply for this scheme, contact your architect as they need to apply on your behalf. Applications will open on February 15 and will end on April 9, with funds available on a first-come, first-served basis.

If eligible, the Green Your Building scheme can reimburse up to 100 per cent of eligible works, including all costs related to labour, materials, equipment hire and a five-year maintenance plan, to set up green facades, green walls or the green retrofitting of front gardens. For more information, you can watch this video here released by the Planning Authority.

Eligible candidates include private residences which have a front garden, apartment blocks with balconies overlooking a public street or space and shops and offices with existing front gardens. Buildings which are scheduled or within Urban Conservation Areas are not eligible.

The benefits to greening up

As we showed in this article, the benefits to greening up a building’s frontage are numerous: A green system extends the lifetime of your building, raises your building’s value, is a great insulator against air and sound pollution, and prevents heat loss while allowing your building to stay cooler during the summer months. Think air pollution doesn’t matter in the home? Think again, according to the EPA, indoor air quality can be two to five times worse than outdoor air quality, especially with regards to airborne chemicals.

House.mt has previously collaborated with Vivacity to illustrate the benefits of greening up a building’s exteriors, whether this take the form of green walls or green rooftop systems. VIVACITY, experts in Mediterranean green infrastructure, are making available stunning green wall and roof systems to Maltese homeowners. Find out more about Vivacity and their work here.

A budget of €2 million has been allocated to the scheme, which is a first for Malta. Funding is capped at €500 per square metre to create green walls, €250 per square metre for green facades and a maximum of €600 per square metre to retrofit front gardens.