Getting Ready for LEED v4 in Taiwan and Beyond

Last week, seed, the official association for LEED professionals in Taiwan, hosted its year-end event, starting off with a networking hour, followed by a keynote speech by a US Green Building Council (USGBC) representative, panel discussion on the challenges of implementing LEED in Taiwan, the seed 2015 Green Leadership Awards, and concluding with a happy hour filled with good cheers.

The event took place in Taipei 101, the world’s tallest LEED v3 EB: O + M Platinum-certified building in the existing building operations and maintenance category. Ms. Freda Tsai, General Manager of Tower Management of Taipei 101, talked about the property management team’s experience in gearing up for the LEED v4 O + M certification and organizing the building’s utility data and measurements which are key to achieving certification.

Taipei 101 is the world’s tallest LEED v3 EB: O + M Platinum-certified building in the existing building operations and maintenance category. (Photo courtesy Taipei 101)

Panelists Jane Henley of USGBC, Freda Tsai of Taipei 101, Ben Chu of Sunrise Professional Engineering Corporation, and Peter Hsu of AECOM Taiwan discuss the challenges and opportunities of LEED v4 in Taiwan. (Photo by Mignon O’Young)

Keynote speaker, Ms. Jane Henley, Senior VP of Global Market of the USGBC, representing USGBC in its 4th annual visit to Taiwan and South East Asia, discussed the latest news from USGBC. With LEED being implemented in more than 150 countries and 1.85 million square feet of LEED-certifiable space being built per day, the organization strives to lead the market in green and sustainable buildings. LEED version 4 is not only developing regional credits to address geographically specific environmental priorities, but also has reduced documentation requirements by 80% compared to 2009 requirements. But more importantly, the focus is to make LEED requirements performance-based rather than prescriptive-based.

Ms. Henley also clarified the global role of Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) and its separate existence from USGBC. GBCI is a certification and credentialing body within the green business and sustainability industry to exclusively administer project certifications and professional credentials and certificates of LEED, PEER, WELL, SITES, and GRESB. The most exciting piece of news is that GBCI is working with various green building certification programs to create an online database of all the green buildings in the world.

Shawn Jang, Chairman of seed, shares his thoughts on green buildings as our legacy. (Image courtesy Shawn Jang)

The takeaway from this event? Quoting Ms. Henley,

The end game is about smart and livable cities.

We have made substantial progress in the green building industry in the last ten years, but there is still a long road ahead of us in reaching our goals of achieving net zero energy and water, creating smart and livable cities, and following through on the latest COP21 climate deal.