Abstract
The green building certification system of Taiwan, EEWH (Ecology, Energy Saving, Waste Reduction and Health), has been in operation for more than 20 years (since 1999). In order to understand the relationship between green building certification and the construction costs of residential buildings, this study obtained 37 green building-certified residential cases and 36 general residential cases available from public information and conducted a comparative analysis. The results of this study showed that the average construction cost of a green building certification residential building was only 1.58% higher than a general residential building, indicating that green building certification does not require a large increase in costs. However, for residential buildings, achieving a high-grade (gold-grade or diamond-grade) green building certification means an increase of 6.7% to 9.3% in construction costs. This shows that the pursuit of higher levels of green building certification does require higher construction costs. In addition, the results of this study can not only provide important references for the government in making green building policies, but also offer a practical strategy for developers for decision-making.
Highlights
Since many related research results show that buildings with green building certification may increase construction costs (Table 2), people have the impression that a green building certified residential building may require extra construction costs to strengthen the building’s materials and equipment to meet the high requirements of green building certification in Taiwan
In order to reduce the additional construction costs added by the green building certification, Taiwan’s green building evaluation system was developed with the aim of enabling designers and architects to adopt a planning and design strategy to enhance the building’s energy efficiency and environmental protection functions
In order to understand whether a residential building with green building certification required higher construction costs, this study obtained 37 green building certified residential cases and 36 general residential cases from public information and conducted a comparative analysis
Summary
In order to practice the goal of sustainable development, several countries launched green building promotion activities by the end of the 20th century; many countries have developed various evaluation systems and certification systems for green buildings [1,2,3,4], such as the BREEAM (Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method) in the UK in 1990 [1,3,4,5,6,7]; LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design Leadership) in the USA in 1998 [1,2,4,7,8,9]; EEWH (Ecology, Energy Saving, Waste Reduction and Health) in Taiwan in 1999 [10,11,12,13,14,15,16]; the Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE) in Japan in 2001 [7,15]; the GB TOOL in Canada in 2005 [1,7]; the Green Mark in Singapore in 2005 [1,4,14,15,17,18]; the Evaluation Standard Green Building (ESGB) in China in 2006 [1,2,18,19]; the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) for residential buildings in the UK in 2008 [2]; and the Green Star in Australia in 2015 [1,8,9,19,20]. Ample studies in the literature have raised the benefits of green buildings, such as energy savings, emissions savings, water savings, operations and maintenance saving, and productivity and health benefits, which conventional buildings do not have [9,15,18,21,22,23,24,25]. Green buildings have many advantages, the additional construction costs of green buildings are very important issues. As energy efficiency is beneficial to those who use the building, it does not produce any direct benefits for the building developer. A better strategy is to encourage construction developers to reduce the additional cost of residential buildings in order to achieve green building certification through planning and design
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