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.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS