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Taiwan Government Creates Bigger Market for Green Building Materials

2014/01/07 | By Ken Liu

Growing numbers of companies jump on the eco-bandwagon

Beginning from January 1, 2014, all new government construction projects costing under NT$50 million in Taiwan are required to meet green building standards.
Beginning from January 1, 2014, all new government construction projects costing under NT$50 million in Taiwan are required to meet green building standards.

By KEN LIU

Beginning on the first day of this year, all new government construction projects in Taiwan costing less than NT$50 million (US$1.6 million at US$1:NT$30) are required to meet the Ministry of the Interior's (MOI's) Green Building Mark standard for energy and water consumption. The standard is administered by the independent Taiwan Architecture & Building Center (TABC).

This move follows a similar one in 2001 that required all projects costing more than NT$50 million to meet the standard, and another one on July 1, 2012, when the ratio of eco materials in new buildings was raised from 30% to 45% for indoor materials and from zero to 10% for outdoor materials.

These rules have attracted more of the island's building-materials manufacturers to roll out materials that are recyclable, ecological, non-hazardous, and high-performance.

One of these manufacturers is George Rubber Industrial Co., Ltd., founded in 1978 in Tainan, southern Taiwan, which is known on the island as the maker of a unique thermal insulation carpet that it developed specifically for blanketing tinplate roofs. According to the company, the carpet utilizes special resin and the thermal ceramic tile technology used on the Space Shuttle to bring down indoor temperatures by as much as 15 degrees C in hot summer weather, thereby minimizing air-conditioning costs. Besides keeping heat out, the carpet also resists water, sound, and rust.

George Rubber has installed the carpet on warehouse facilities run by over 50 organizations across Taiwan, including Nan Ya PCB Corp., First Hotel, San Shing Fastech Corp., Uni-President Enterprise Corp., Hope Automation Corp., Hualien Airport, and the consumer cooperative unit for workers in the Nangang Industrial Park in Nantou County, central Taiwan.

The carpet, which comes with a 10-year warranty, has reportedly impressed the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

Mineral Composite Board

Another firm jumping on the green-materials wagon is Full-Mark Enterprise Co., Ltd., founded in 1981 in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. Full-Mark is proud of its mineral composite board (MCB), which is free of toxins, asbestos, formaldehyde, and heavy metals, and protects against sound, microbes, heat, water, and fire.

The MCB can be integrated into plywood, make-up board, partition walls, and artistic building materials. It has passed class-A testing by SGS Taiwan, the non-profit Plastics Industry Development Center (PIDC), and the Bureau of Standards, Metrology, and Inspections (BSMI) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) for non-flammability and extremely low smoke generation.

Experiments prove that the board's physical nature and functionality are not harmed even if  it is soaked in water and then naturally dried. It also resists impact, pressing, and twisting, making it suitable for various kinds of secondary processing.

Poly Vigor Enterprise Co., Ltd. is promoting a vertical thermal-insulation vegetation wall which offers a water saving of 80% compared to conventional products and is maintenance free due to its patented “semi-hydroponics” approach.

According to the company, this approach keeps vegetation growing properly and its roots always moist, nourished, and provided with air--all when using less water than usual.

Lien Cheng Environment Technology Inc., a subsidiary of the plastic-processing-machine maker Hao Yu Precision Machinery Industry Co., is marketing its “Seven Plus” series of indoor plant walls and non-toxic wood-plastic composites as eco-friendly building materials.



Lien Cheng's green walls capture carbon dioxide and VOCs, and restrain the growth of micro-organisms. Their composites are 100% formaldehyde-free, recyclable, nonflammable, and resistant to humidity and insects, and are certified as a first-grade nonflammable building material in accordance with Taiwan's industry standards.

Ua Wood Floor Inc.is promoting its "Ua Floors"-branded wooden flooring, which is presented as a nontoxic, bacteria-resistant, healthy, and energy-efficient product. The company uses nanometer and infrared technologies in its flooring for purposes of health.

The company claims that its flooring has been adopted by the U.S. Pentagon, diamond maker DeBeer, and Apple iStore.

Wooden Flooring

Ua Wood spent four years developing the flooring, which won it the first MIT Smile logo for Taiwan's wood-bamboo furnishing industry, the island's first Ecological Green Building Material logo by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the first U.S. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate for the island's wood-bamboo furnishing industry, and the first nanoMark from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) for a wood-bamboo furnishing maker. The company is also Taiwan's only furnishings maker to be granted Ecological Green Building Material and Low Emission Health Green Building Material logos.

White Horse Ceramic Co., Ltd. has been certified for the Environmental Protection Administration's (EPA's) Green Mark and Recycling Green Building Material Label and the MOEA's nanoMark for its use of recycled materials and nanometer-grade coating on its tiles.

The use of recycled materials helps minimize eco-damage from the mining of virgin minerals, while the nano-coating reduces the adhesion index and enables easier cleaning—in fact, it eliminates the need to use water to clean high-rise walls.

The tile manufacturer won Taiwan Excellence Awards from the MOEA for three years in a row. It was the only tile maker to win the award in 2013.

Nan Ya Plastic Corp., a member of the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) which has won the EPA's Green Building Material Label certification, has released a number of friendly building materials including the Neuma family of recyclable airtight window and door frames as well as formaldehyde-free flooring and fire-retardant boards.
 

Airtight Frames

The company's airtight frames save electricity for air conditioning thanks to their good performance in stopping air leaks, with a leakage rate below 2m3/h.m2. The frames are good acoustical barriers as well, reducing the amount of outdoor noise penetrating into the interior by up to 35 decibels.

Experiments carried out by National Cheng Kung University's Department of Architecture indicate that the production of Nan Ya's airtight frames generates only one-ninth the amount of CO2 that results from aluminum-frame production.

As part of its eco-friendliness effort, Sanyo Pottery & Porcelain Industry Co. is pitching tiles that use high-definition inkjet printing technology. The company has traditionally printed the grains of various natural materials onto its tiles using silicon transfer molds and print screens, a process which it says consumes a lot of material and is unable to provide vivid textures.

As a computerized technology, inkjet printing can produce vividly textured images saved in computers and print evenly on every corner of a tile's rough surface, while saving on the cost of print screens, molds, and paint.

The company has been awarded the Recycling Green Building Material Label and certification by Singapore, and ISO 9002 certification by the Bureau of Commodity Inspection and Quarantine, a unit of the MOEA.


Sanyo was established in 1971 and today is one of Taiwan's leading manufacturers of ceramic tiles. Its product line includes external/internal wall tiles, floor tiles, and homogenous tiles.

Chen Lin Li Enterprise Co., Ltd., which was founded in 1995 to make outdoor building materials, highlights its eco-friendliness by using plastic wood which does not involve wood at all but produces an excellent wooden texture.

The company makes its products out of pure high impact polystyrene (HIPS), which features excellent resistance to erosion by natural forces such as ultraviolet rays, humidity, acid rain, and air pollution. HIPS is a recyclable plastic, saving not only forests but also virgin plastic materials.
 

Eco-building Solutions
City Green Corp. is Taiwan's first consulting firm to offer eco-building solutions encompassing building design, green building label application, intelligent building label application, green equipment and system engineering, construction project oversight, and turnkey project planning.

When it starts a construction project, the company works in cooperation with architects, engineers, landscape architects, lighting designers, air-conditioning engineers, electrical technicians, construction companies, building owners, building operators, green-building certification specialists certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design Accredited Professional (LEED AP) organization of the U.S., and specialists certified by Taiwan's Intelligent Green Building Accredited Professional (IGB AP) organization.

City Green uses a four-stage process in its projects: goal management and cost management in the initial stage, analysis of the green value of the project's engineering in the detailed design stage, provision of green-turnkey norms and documents in the turnkey stage, and implementation of green construction and green-function verification in the final stage.