Household and personal care products manufacturer Green

care Developments is taking their commitment to "keeping green" to a new level with the $5 million buuilding featuring a grass roof that provides insulation and cooling.

The "green factory", as director Bill Daft calls it, will include grey water and rainwater harvesting, solar vacuum tubes for heating of water, horizontal wind turbines, biological water treatment, solar power, extensive natural landscape buffer zones, and low-energy processing and goods movement.

Mr Daft said the grass roof was a European idea.

"When I first mentioned it to my partners, they thought I was bonkers.

"It's environmentally friendly, provides a habitat for birds and insects within an urban and industrial environment, and provides cooling.

"The curved design has a protrusion at the middle of the roof with louvres which allows cool air to vaporise off the grass, which is watered with the company's waste water.

"The breeze goes across the roof in a curved manner, is captured by the louvres and directed into work areas - there's no need for air-conditioning at all."

Mr Daft said the factory, earmarked for Carrum Downs, will be a first.

"I don't believe there are any buildings with an extensive grass roof - there are buildings with rooftop gardens but that's a different concept."

The factory, on 1.4 hectares in Clifton Grove, which adjoins the EastLink Industrial Estate, will be built in three stages.

"The first stage is 2700 square metres, then we have two more to go onto that, each of about 1300 square metres," Mr Daft said. "We've also got enough land to accommodate our customers in the future."

The company has been at its site in Kitchen Road, Dandenong, for nine years and has outgrown the premises.