As the environmental protection issue had become the primary emphasis worldwide since the Earth Summit 1992, the international community has been taking a series of practical actions and successive policies in pursuing environmental sustainability. A variety of concepts related to green cities, sustainable cities, and GHG emission reduction, have been thus enthusiastically advocated and concretely put into practice for enhancing the human living environmental quality and achieving the co-existential harmony between the built environment and natural ecosystem.
Never lagging behind, Taiwan echoed such an urgent call for actions on environmental issues to not only conduct relevant institutionalization work but also promote the “Green Building Promotion Program” from 2001 and 2007 for thoroughly embedding sustainable design concepts into building construction. The program contained the mandatory green building design for newly-constructed buildings in the public sector, green building renovation for existing buildings, energy saving improvement for air-conditioning system and building envelope, research and development of recycled material technology and promotion, green building material labeling system, green building concept promotion and international interchange, as well as phased implementation of green building regulations. It was aimed to create a new evolution of building practices and investments in Taiwan and to encourage all the stakeholders to adopt holistic and diverse design concepts in buildings that are profitable to human living environment and earth sustainability, so that the goals of green building can be gradually achieved, covering ecological friendliness, energy saving, waste reduction, human health, reuse and recycling, and high performance. The impacts of building construction on earth environment and resources can be alleviated as well.
For continuously promoting the green building policy, the government of Taiwan implemented the follow-on “Eco-city and Green Building Promotion Program” in 2008 and strengthened the mandatory green building design via requiring the acquisition of a green building label prior to the official acceptance and auditing process. In addition, effective since July 1, 2009, the percentage of green building material utilization in the Building Technical Regulations has been elevated to 30% of total floor area for interior finishing. July 1, 2013, the percentage of green building material utilization in the Building Technical Regulations has been elevated to 45% of total floor area for interior finishing. In order to meet the expected soaring growth of green building label and green building material label evaluation demand, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) started to introduce designated professional organizations to conduct the evaluation process of green building label, green building material label, and intelligent building label. Any organization complying with the “Operational Directions for Applying for Professional Evaluation Organization” for individual labels described above can be designated by the MOI to take charge of the evaluation work. Besides, the newly-constructed publicly-owned building that the construction cost is above 200 million NTD is required to pass the mandatory intelligent building evaluation certification too, which has been effective since July 1, 2013. Through the participation of different stakeholders on these public affairs and the extension of the evaluation work, the environmental effects of building energy saving and green building material utilization and the convenience of intelligent building and its application can be further increased.
In 2017, following the preceding project last year, the project will be consecutively undertaken based on the “Intelligent Green Building Promotion Program”. In the project, the Taiwan Architecture and Building Center (TABC) will assist in green building evaluation for label and candidate certificate, intelligent building evaluation for label and candidate certificate, green building material label evaluation, plaque and certificate making, as well as statistical data collection and analysis, including: 1) numbers of green building labels, candidate certificates and evaluation indicators, 2) effects on energy saving, water saving, and carbon reduction, 3) numbers of green building material labels, companies and products, 4) numbers of intelligent building labels, candidate certificates and evaluation indicators, etc. The statistical information will be regularly announced on the website for extensively promoting green building, green building material, and intelligent building to the public.