Though cars are getting greener, with better designs, reduced emissions, and more eco-friendly parts, more can always be done to reduce their impact on the environment. This may include altering the vehicles themselves, the roads they drive on, or even the places they park. Automatic car parking systems are predisposed to keep cars safe and protected when they’re not in use, but did you know that they can also be built to reduce the carbon footprint of every car they hold? It's true! Here’s how investing in a sustainable parking garage can help the environment.
Space: The Final Frontier
While parking lots are a necessity, they do take up a lot of space, occupying large tracts of land that could be used for farming or hosting plants that enrich the air and protect wildlife. Visually, you must admit that the land around your buildings looks better with more greenery and less blacktop. That’s why automatic car parking systems, especially those that provide raised and vertical parking spaces that safely stack cars over each other, are environmentally smarter. They use pre-existing space and make the most of it. This means less land that’s paved over and barren for most of the day and more space for landscaping and natural growth.
No New Construction
When you make use of the land you already have by installing eco-friendly parking like car lifts and automatic car parking systems, you’re saving money in a multitude of ways. No new construction means no need to apply for permits and get approval, no environmental studies on a new parking lot, and no purchasing new land nearby. It means you aren’t buying concrete, asphalt, gravel, and other materials and paying for the manpower, equipment, and potential overtime required to excavate, pour, set, and paint the new lot. This puts less strain on natural resources, burns little to no fuel, and doesn’t expose the local environment to several months of construction—something your neighbors will appreciate as well.
Automation Means You Save on Energy
A fully automated parking system requires no attendants, as drivers don’t need to enter the facility. This means that ventilation can be kept at minimal levels since you don’t have to worry about the air quality as much. Lighting, which is a must for the safety of people wandering around the garage, isn’t necessary in an automated parking garage as well. The electrical savings are incredible, and your facility won’t be drawing more power than it needs from the local utility company. One final positive feature of a sustainable parking lot—once vehicles arrive and enter the automatic car parking system, they will be shut off before they’re transported to their spots. Rather than burning gas and belching exhaust into your garage as the drivers search for spaces, the cars are taken to their spaces cleanly and efficiently. It's a small matter, but it adds up to less carbon monoxide and other toxins in the atmosphere.
Safety First
We’ve talked about lighting and how it’s not necessary to ward off criminals in a standard parking garage. But there’s another level of incredible protection in the fact that automated parking garages are locked and sealed while cars are sequestered and stacked in hard-to-reach spots. Clients, customers, and coworkers will know that their cars are safe and secure from thievery, vandalism, grand theft auto, and other crimes. This translates into bigger savings for you on insurance expenses as well. No opportunity for crime means no need for insurance against theft. In a tangential way, when cars are kept in a safe place, it reduces the potential for accidents—accidents that may come with leaky systems, flat or blown-out tires that need to be replaced, or demolished cars that must be scrapped. Protecting cars with automated parking systems means fewer cars on the scrap heap, reducing all sorts of pollutants from the environment.
Water Is Conserved, High Temperatures Are Kept Down
Smaller automated parking garages, unlike parking lots, don’t carry as much of the double-edged sword of being heat islands and sources of storm runoff. Heat islands are buildings, parking lots, and other urban structures that absorb heat and cause higher temps during the day, interfere with cooling at night, and generally contribute to greater levels of air pollution. Automated garages are self-contained, take up less space, and don’t feature asphalt that’s been exposed to the sun all day. Parking lots are also terrible sources of storm run-off. When it rains, whatever oil, gas, trash, and other toxins and pollutants resting on the lot are washed away, entering the sewer system or nearby bodies of freshwater. Garages with proper drainage and gutter systems can ensure excess water is cleaner and redirected away from freshwater sources, wilderness preserves, and the like.
Garages Can Go Green
Here’s another way that an automated parking system can help the environment. Newer architecture designs buildings with a greater eye toward working with the building’s natural surroundings rather than against them. Sustainable architecture attempts to minimize its impact on nature. While energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems are one way to do this, more interesting options abound. Automated parking garages can host rooftop gardens that make use of all that available sunlight, producing lovely plants and even fresh fruits and vegetables. Solar panels and windmills can be installed to reduce the need for outside power. Water can be conserved further by installing rainwater catchment devices such as tanks and barrels to save water and using it to hydrate the landscaping when necessary. Sustainable architecture isn’t in the future—it’s already here, and parking garages can do their part to help!
Automated Parking Garages Are Built Better and Look Better
As modern buildings, automatic car parking system buildings are made to be more efficient, often incorporate recycled materials and more energy-saving means of construction, and are built to blend in with or beautify their surroundings rather than dominate them. As mentioned, they occupy less land than parking lots or older garages, leaving ample room for nature. In short, while cars are a necessary if somewhat messy means of transportation, automated parking garages work to reduce their impact while providing a greener temporary home for them.
