Julie Guyenet is with the Cool Roof Rating Council, an independent, nonprofit organization that maintains a third-party rating system for radiative properties of roof surfacing materials. For more information, visit www.coolroofs.org.
As green building strategies evolve to keep up with increasingly stringent building energy codes and standards, so do cool roofs. A roof, as any other building component, can be selected to best serve a particular purpose, such as weather resistance or thermal regulation. Cool roofs are optimally designed to minimize the transfer of heat from the sun to the interior of a building.