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Green buildings enjoying a boom

The number of buildings in Taiwan receiving or being pre-approved for green building certification has risen almost 70 times in eight years, to 349 last year from five in 2000, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday.

Considerable progress had been made promoting sustainable buildings since the Ministry of the Interior launched its green building program in 2001, the CEPD said.

As of September this year, 2,295 buildings have been certified as “green buildings,” and they have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 521,000 tonnes annually and saved users NT$2.16 billion (US$66.5 million) in electricity and water charges.

Taiwan became the fourth country in the world to implement a green building certification protocol when it introduced its unique EEWH (ecology, energy saving, waste reduction and health) system in 1999.

The system, specially tailored to account for Taiwan’s tropical and subtropical climate, considers nine indicators in the four categories to determine whether a building meets “green” criteria.

Taiwan was also the first country in which the government took the lead in promoting the initiative, renovating public buildings and requiring them to meet the criteria, while including special clauses in its building code on sustainability.

Last year, Taiwan launched a four-year program to promote ecological cities and green buildings. It is expected to spend NT$2 billion by 2011 on renovating metropolitan districts and traditional street areas, improving interior green design technology and establishing a market mechanism for green building materials, the CEPD said.

The four-year project is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 270,000 tonnes every year and lower electricity and water fees by NT$890 million a year.

The CEPD also said the government would look to place controls on projects with large construction sites to improve the quality of living in cities.
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