CTBC Financial Park (中國信託金融園區), a commercial complex in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港), in December last year was awarded the US Green Building Council’s top honor under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building rating system, CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行) said in a press release on Thursday last week.
LEED is a “green” building certification program based on a system that rates for design, construction, operation and maintenance of environmentally friendly buildings. There are four levels of certification — certified, silver, gold and platinum.
CTBC Financial Park received a platinum LEED v4.1 rating, becoming the first building in Taiwan’s financial industry to have achieved the feat.
Photo courtesy of CTBC Bank
Its score was higher than those of the Willis Tower and the Empire State Building in the US, the bank said.
This came after the complex in 2018 won a diamond rating, the highest in Taiwan’s ecology, energy saving, waste reduction and health certification system.
“CTBC Financial Park aimed to become a ‘zero-carbon green building’ in the planning stage. It also looks to implement the vision of low-carbon buildings in terms of low-carbon transportation, energy management, green lighting and smart air conditioning,” CTBC Bank chairman Thomas Chen (陳國世) said after receiving the award from the council.
As the largest bank in Taiwan, CTBC is committed to playing an important role in a low-carbon economy and exerting its influence on the sustainable economic model, Chen said.
CTBC Bank scored 83 points in the LEED v4.1 Platinum certification and received the first LEED Dynamic Plaque in Taiwan, which provides a real-time LEED score for areas including energy saving, water conservation, waste management and indoor air quality on an exclusive Web site.
The scoring platform offers a global benchmark analyzed by big data algorithms in comparison with international buildings. Details can be found online at: https://app.arconline.io/plaque/1000120331/lZjWV8hRRF4JeKLpru5kLq0E.
As a shareholder and long-term partner of Taipei 101, CTBC Bank knows that Taipei 101 has been selected as the most influential skyscraper in the world, with many years of experience in green building operations and LEED certification.
Relying on Taipei 101’s expertise, CTBC said it has worked hard for a year to obtain the platinum LEED certification.
With this rating, CTBC Financial Park has scored much higher than the global standard.
The park has constructed skybridges and is near MRT Nangang Software Park Station to encourage the use of low-carbon transportation, the bank said.
It has rainwater recovery ponds with a storage capacity of 2,625 tonnes, which manage urban runoff; it uses white roofs to reduce the urban heat-island effect; it has a food waste composting operation; and it uses low-level lighting to reduce environmental light damage, the bank said.
The bank said energy saving in the complex also leads its peers in Taiwan, as the office floors use a chilled beam air conditioning system and an ice storage system to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while helping shift peak demand.
In addition, the office spaces are fully equipped with LED lamps and the complex has installed solar panels with a total area of 699m2, it added.
The complex uses green paper products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council for green procurement and has floor scales to effectively control the weight of waste and recycled materials to promote optimized classification and reduction of waste and increase the recycling rate from 18 percent to 51 percent, CTBC said.
CTBC holds monthly environmental education seminars and promotes Taiwan’s unique fern ecological environment, which helped it to gain recognition from the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) Asia-Pacific region, winning an award of excellence at the IFLA Asia-Pac LA Awards in the Parks and Open Space Category in September last year, it said.
To improve environmental, social and governance, and remain in line with global sustainable financial development trends, CTBC last year announced that it would join the Equator Principles Association and follow the UN Principles for Responsible Banking, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and the UN Principles for Sustainable Insurance.
The bank said it plans to participate in the global Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures to contribute to sustainable business.
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