Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Urban Forestry & Urban Greening journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ufug Original article Media and social impact valuation of a living wall: The case study of the Sagrado Corazon hospital in Seville (Spain) Luis Pérez-Urrestarazu a, ⁎ , Ana Blasco-Romero a , Rafael Fernández-Cañero b a Urban Greening & Biosystems Engineering Research Group, Area of Agro-Forestry Engineering, Universidad de Sevilla, ETSIA Ctra, Utrera km. 1, 41013, Seville, Spain b Urban Greening & Biosystems Engineering Research Group, Department of Agro-Forestry Sciences, Universidad de Sevilla, ETSIA Ctra, Utrera km. 1, 41013, Seville, Spain ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Marketing Soft benefits Users’ perception Vertical garden Vertical greening systems ABSTRACT Vertical greening systems have increased in popularity during the last years due to their experienced added ecological and aesthetic value for current clients. The use of living walls is in line with a service sector focusing on environmental consciousness. Still, scientific evidence is lacking regarding the multiple benefits of LW. There is also a lingering fear of high installation and maintenance costs. Therefore, it is important to assess the intangible benefits that increase the value of living walls and, hence, of the place in which they are installed. The main objective of this work is the valuation of the returns obtained because of the publicity related to a living wall installed in the ‘Quirónsalud Sagrado Corazón’ Hospital in Seville (Spain) and the assessment of the public’s perception towards it. The investment that the hospital would have made in order to obtain a similar media impact has been estimated. The living wall proved to be very profitable in terms of publicity as the installation costs were recovered six times over. Also, the attitude towards the presence of such a greening system in the premises was assessed. To do so, 555 questionnaires were handed out face-to-face to patients, visitors and workers present at the hospital. Most participants concurred that the living wall induced positive reactions and improved their psychological well-being. Therefore, they completely agreed with the investment made by the hospital on such a vertical greening system. 1. Introduction Many cities are currently facing several problems related to a high construction density and lack of green spaces. For this reason, unconventional urban greening methods such as green roofs and vertical greening systems are being implemented. The use of living walls (LW) is becoming popular, even indoors, as a way of introducing plants into the built environment. However, in many cases, an LW is not installed because of the expenditure it involves, especially regarding installation and maintenance costs. For this reason, it is important to take into account the advantages of these technologies, several of which involve an economic gain that contributes to recovering the investment. In some cases, non-economic characteristics such as aesthetics and environmental protection are key motivators (Balram and Dragićević, 2005) which incentivise LW installations. In the service sector, users or clients are more environmentally conscious, so these systems can provide an added ecological value that is highly appreciated. Also, some authors point to an increase of the property value when there are green areas around (Bengochea Morancho, 2003; Czembrowski and Kronenberg, 2016; Netusil et al., 2014). In the case of an LW, these increments have been estimated at between 2 and 5% (Perini and Rosasco, 2013). Of course, these figures are inconclusive as they depend on multiple variables (characteristics of the building, location, type and dimensions of the LW, etc.). Over the last years, the scientific community has been researching about the multiple ecological and environmental benefits associated with LWs, such as enriching urban biodiversity, improving air quality or enhancing building thermal performance (Pérez-Urrestarazu et al., 2015). Sometimes, the effect of an LW can be measured directly or determined using models. For example, noise attenuation or indoor temperature modulation due to an LW can be empirically tested. Therefore, there are some studies that quantify those benefits in terms of economic impact (e.g., energy savings). But in other cases, people benefit from an environmental amenity without consciously using it (Tomalty and Komorowski, 2010). This indirect use value is considered as a soft or intangible benefit, not directly tradable and quite difficult to quantify (e.g., users’ positive feelings towards a ‘greener’ space or marketing benefits related with the public’s interest in environmentally friendly products and sustainability). As an example, Tomalty and Komorowski (2010) quantified the economic value of different green http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2017.04.002 Received 21 November 2016; Received in revised form 6 March 2017; Accepted 4 April 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: lperez@us.es (L. Pérez-Urrestarazu), anablascoromero@gmail.com (A. Blasco-Romero), rafafc@us.es (R. Fernández-Cañero). Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 24 (2017) 141–148 Available online 13 April 2017 1618-8667/ © 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. MARK