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Quality you can see, experience you can trust.

Green Living Roofs - Eco-friendly Containers

What is a green roof?

In today's world the focus is on green living, and that can include your shipping container! Help offset your carbon footprint by transforming your container roof into an eco-friendly system by adding a green roof. Also known as a living roof, this is basically a container roof that is designed especially for growing plants and flowers. Green roofs provide many benefits when installed correctly - including water storage, decreasing flood risk, aesthetic impact and habitat creation. These are popular in conversions for schools, where they have the added benefit of teaching children about nature and habitat, and also containers installed in conservation areas, where a living roof helps blend the container in with the natural surroundings. And if you plant bee friendly plants and flowers you can do your bit towards helping with the much needed increase to our bee population. We spent many hours researching and developing a unique shipping container living roof structure which ensures you enjoy the benefits of an eco-friendly container and promote biodiversity at the same time. Our living roofs are designed for "extensive" green roofs. Extensive green roofs are designed to be low maintenance, lightweight systems with no general access. Typically, they have thin layers of substrate (the growing medium) to keep depth and weight to a minimum. Usually our customers chose a sedum or wildflower blanket as the growing medium, but a standard soil substrate or planting is a viable alternative.

An example of a finished green living roof

CS94475 - converted for Park4All gardening group in Macclesfield, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. We've carried out many container conversions for community groups and organisations, particularly those involving green spaces, such as parks, playing fields and allotments, where equipment needs to be securely stored in publicly accessible places. This neat little 8 footer has standard conversion features for this type of purpose, but the addition of the living roof distinguishes it from the rest

Making the green living roof

We can install a green roof on any container. The green roof design needs to accommodate adequate water retention, suitable drainage, structural loading and the depth of green roof growing substrate. The roof structure we create is strong enough to allow occasional walking upon, for initial planting and periodic maintenance but it's not designed for frequent and heavy use. It's important not to place a living roof directly on top of a shipping container roof as the roof is not designed to carry weight. The roof will deflect and quickly degrade, therefore we construct a floating/suspended roof. Living roofs are popular addition to wood cladding, as together they create a beautiful aesthetic.


Optional extra - just add rain!

To make things simple we've partnered with an award winning green roof company, Sky Garden, to offer a full living roof system. Choose from the UK grown sedum or wildflower blanket* as an add-on to your container. We'll do the rest so all you need to do is wait for the growing medium to be delivered directly to your door, ready to lay! Everything you need for a living roof system is covered, including protection fleece, drainage layer, substrate and seed blanket.



*Please note: Subject to seasonal availability; we have designed the living roof structure to allow for the requirements of handling and delivering by lorry mounted crane, therefore the final stages of fitting the membrane and growing medium must be carried out by the end user once the container is in place on site.

Did you know?

20m2 of green roof space can, on average, absorb 100kg of carbon per year. That's equivalent to:

12,164

Number of smartphones charged.

251

Miles driven in a car.

1 Year

Running a standard refrigerator.

4.1

Gas cylinders used for home barbeques.



111

Pounds of coal burned.

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Just some of the clients we've worked with...

Mercedes-Benz
ITV
Ministry of Defence
Environment Agency
National Trust
Superdry
Balfour Beatty
British Gas
Network Rail
Harley-Davidson
Hilti
Audi
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Committed to Quality

We are ISOQAR Approved and certified to ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems, demonstrating our commitment to excellence. We are also members of MakeUK, who champion British manufacturing, and the Container Self Storage and Traders Association (CSTA), representing global operators and innovators. In addition, we are registered members of JOSCAR, the Joint Supply Chain Accreditation Register.

ISOQAR Approved – ISO 9001:2015 Certificate No. 13586-QNS-001

ISO Cert No. 13586-QNS-001
ISO 9001:2015

MakeUK Member – Supporting British Manufacturing
Container Self Storage and Traders Association Member
JOSCAR Registered Member

Testimonials

As a long established and reputable shipping container company, we want to instil confidence in our customers that we can deliver on our promises, and provide high quality products and service.

But don't just take our word for it, see for yourself what our past and present clients have to say about Containers Direct.
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"You have proved to be excellent. You are pretty competitive and always provide a container of good quality exactly to our spec. Cory and the team have proved to be good sounding boards for ideas and able to provide lots of practical advice too." City of Edinburgh Council
24th October 2025
order - a Used 15ft Container
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"Very pleased with service, right through the process including making arrangements for an earlier delivery day." Mark Yemm - Westons Cider
24th October 2025
order - a Used 30ft Container
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"The delivery driver was excellent - really helpful with a 'can do' attitude." Jon Fowler - Drayton Parish Council
15th October 2025
order - a 'Once-Used' 20ft Container
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"I would recommend this service across the channel island to all." Island Waste Ltd
8th October 2025
order - a Used 20ft ModiBox Container
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"You've done a great job, thank you very much." Tristan Dodd - PEC Tyres
7th October 2025
order - two Used 30ft Containers
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"Excellent service and delivery was great." MSL Property Care Services Ltd
1st October 2025
order - a Used 16ft Container
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A green roof, also known as a living roof, is a container roof that is specifically designed for growing plants and flowers.