Interactive analysis of green building materials promotion with relevance to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from Taiwan’s building sector

Abstract

Service and residential sectors have become significant sources for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relevant to the electricity demand for heating, ventilation & air conditioning (HVAC) in buildings. In Taiwan, the energy efficiency (or energy saving) in buildings is a very important issue because the service and residential sectors in this subtropical/tropical island region are the primary sources of GHG emissions. Therefore, the main purpose of this work was to present an interactive analysis of Taiwan’s energy consumption, GHG emissions from the services and residential sectors, and the certified green building materials (GBM) during the period of 2005–2020 based on the official statistics. Furthermore, the policy for promoting the GBM products with high thermal insulation performance and their compulsory specifications were also addressed. On average, the service and residential sectors accounted for about 15% of total domestic energy consumption during this period. By contrast, the electricity consumption shared around 35% in 2020, and also indicated a decreasing trend from 2005 to 2020 due to the governmental policy for improving energy saving and energy efficiency through the establishments of greenhouse buildings (GB) and GBM. In line with international trend of low-carbon buildings, the Taiwan government has promoted the GBM labeling system under the promulgation of relevant regulations since the early 2000s. A total of 2668 GBM labels have been issued over the years of 2005–2020, showing that the number of approved and issued GBM reached a record high in 2020. In summary, the certified high-performance GBM products indicated significant increases since 2013 under the regulatory promotion. The new and/or retrofitted buildings will adopt the certified GBM with high insulation performance totally by 2030 under the sustainable development goals (SDGs).