Green roofs have been increasing in popularity in Australia over the past 10 years.  Some of the early examples include the Freshwater Place residential tower in Melbourne (2002) with its Level 10 rooftop Half Acre Garden, CH2 building housing the Melbourne City Council (2006) – Australia's first 6-star Green Star Design commercial office building as certified by the Green Building Council of Australia, and Condor Tower (2005) with a  lawn on the 4th floor.
Since 2008, city councils and influential business groups in Australia have become active promoting the benefits of green roofs. "The Blueprint to Green Roof Melbourne" is one program being run by the Committee for Melbourne. In 2010, the largest Australian green roof project was announced.  The Victorian Desalination Project will have a "living tapestry" of 98,000 Australian indigenous plants over a roof area spanning more than . The roof will form part of the desalination plant's sophisticated roof system, designed to blend the building into the landscape, and provide acoustic protection, corrosion resistance, thermal control, and reduced maintenance.
In June 2014 ecological artist Lloyd Godman, with structural engineer Stuart Jones and environmental scientist Grant Harris collaborated to install an experiment using Tillandsia plants in extreme outdoor conditions at levels 92, 91, 65 and 56 on Eureka Tower in Melbourne, Australia. The selected air plants are extremely light, and are able to grow with no soil or watering system, and the plants have been checked at regular intervals since their installation and are still growing and flowering. One species; Tillandsia bergeri, has grown from a single shoot to several thriving colonies.
The project is now titled Tillandsia SWARM and has been expanded to include many other buildings across Australia, including Federation Square, National Gallery of Victoria and Essendon Airport.  Godman has also experimented with Tillandsia plant screens that can be moved across skylights to create shade in summer and to allow in sun during winter. Temperature readings taken on a 40°C day in summer revealed that the surface temperature on the roof had reached 84°C, while the shadows cast by the plants had reduced the surface temperature on the roof to 51°C.