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| What's Green Building Material |
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| Green Building Material |
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| The concept of Green Building Material was advocated at the 1st International Symposium on Materials Science & Technology in 1988, wherein the Green refers to the level of the contribution to the sustainable environmental development. However, there comes with a new definition in 1992 by the international academic circles, which goes: the materials which have the minimum load on the earth environment and produce no harm to the human health in the process of raw material acquirement, product manufacturing, application as well as the cycle of regeneration and reuse are collectively called the Green Building Material. |
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| Re-SOURCE |
Produce |
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| Recycle |
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Taiwan is a small island with high civilization, so many interior spaces have the same problem including over-density of family members and over-used of decorative materials, all these have finally resulted in the waste of large amount of materials and the occurrence of new indoor pollution source. In order to get an effective control over the indoor pollution source, prolong the life cycle of buildings and the reuse of the materials, we should formulate the key assessment points and standards applicable to domestic green building materials so as to advance the practicable control measures to protect the human health as well as the environmental sources. |
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| The 21st century is the age of green building materials. By conbination with Green Prouct Labels and Building Material Lable of all the countries, the concepts of Green Building Materail can be summarized in Talbe 1 by the international community. |
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| Table 1 General concepts concerning the Green Building Material |
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| Features |
Reuse—Use again for more than once • Recycle—Cycle again • Reduce—Reduce the quantity • Low emission materials—Low pollution |
| Advantages |
Ecological materials — Reduce the ecological load and energy consumption of chemical composite materials
Reclamation and reuse — Reduce the material producing energy and source consumption.
Healthy and safe — The employment of building materials including natural materials and those with low-volatility organic compounds can reduce or eliminate the harm to the human body brought by the chemical composite materials.
Performance of materials — The assessment and control of the basic and special performances of the materials can ensure the good quality in the application of building materials. |
| Assessment Items |
Performance guarantee • Environmental protection guarantee • Health guarantee |
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Most important issues concerning the energy source, health and environment is closely attached with architecture. They just vary with the concept, region and technical difference becoming many different names, description and assessment items. However, the final object is to establish a healthy and comfortable environment, to pursue the coexistence between the humankind and other creatures and then finally to achieve the sustainable development of planet environment. |
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| Certification Type of Green Building Material Label in Taiwan |
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| At present, the existing assessment system in Taiwan includes the Chinese National Standard and the Commodity Inspection Rules formulated by the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection, which stipulate the general performances of the products, and also the environmental protection assessment system which includes the Green Procurement System and the Environmental Protection Label System formulated by Environmental Protection Administration as well as the Green Building Label, totaling nine kinds of criteria for green buildings, which set out the stipulations over the ecology, energy-saving, waste reduction and health of the newly-constructed buildings. |
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| Promotion Principles |
Ecological, healthy living environment, hight performance of buliding materials and resource reuse. |
| Construction System |
Enhance Taiwan's Green Building System and promote the national image and international competitiveness. |
| Environmental Issues |
Fulfill the spirits of GBM Label as Human Health and Global Sustainability. |
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| Promotion Principles |
Ecological, healthy living environment, hight performance of buliding materials and resource reuse. |
| Construction System |
Enhance Taiwan's Green Building System and promote the national image and international competitiveness. |
| Environmental Issues |
Fulfill the spirits of GBM Label as Human Health and Global Sustainability. |
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Intension of Green Building Material Label |
In the field of building materials, the Green Building Material Label was formally promulgated to the public in July 2004 to accept the application. Prior to the authorization of such Label, the testing for building materials should be firstly performed, the inspection report submitted should then be audited by the Green Building Material Label Audit Committee as the stage review and integrative information. While the audit accepted, the case should be submitted to the Architecture and Building Research Institute of Ministry for approval and granted with the Green Building Material Label.
Nowadays, the Green Building Material Label system has formed its own assessment benchmark under the arrangement and cooperation of experts and academics by the Architecture and Building Research Institute of Ministry and can serves as a base and support for people’s selection of building materials. |
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| HPB’s products are awarded the Green Building Material Label : |
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| Green Building Material Label is mainly applicable to the recognition and identification of ecological green building materials, healthy green building materials, high-performance building materials and the recycling green building materials, whose characteristics are respectively described in the following： |
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(1) Ecological Green Building Material：
no shortage crisis and less labor treatment involved
Due to the fact that humankind always focused on the economic development while ignored the environment balance in the past, it resulted in the degradation of the living environment, disappearance of diversity of creatures and the exhaust of energy resources, all these are now lodging the challenges for human living environment and the future development. With the upward trend of sustainable development sense, surveying the impact brought by the buildings over the environment and the use of building materials become one of the key factors. Ecological green building materials, during its whole life cycle from the production to elimination, should not only meet the basic performance requirement and reduce the treatment of the building materials, but also focus on the fulfillment of two indexes, namely [No shortage crisis] and [Less labor treatment involved]; as for the earth environment, making use of inexhaustible sources from the nature can depress the risk of source exhaust. |
(2) Healthy green building materials：
refer to those green materials with low content of HCHO and low emission of TVOC, which will not be harmful to the human health, in another word, healthy green building materials are such kinds of building materials as characterized by low emission, low pollution, low odor and low physiological harm. In the past, due to the insufficient control over the healthy building materials and under the direct exposure to the high-risk indoor environment for a long time and plus such factors as the unstable air swap and deficient recognizance of the indoor environment quality, great harm has happened to the people, therefore, the assessment of healthy green building materials should be emphasized on the interior building materials and decorating materials so as to control the content of HCHO emitted form the building materials and volatile organic compounds to create an indoor environment quality without harm to human body and safeguarding the health of all the people. |
(3) High-performance Green Building Material：
Permeability and Sound insulation
The high-performance green building materials refer to those building materials which have a higher performance in general properties. In addition to the basic properties of safety and function, such materials should have other special properties like sound insulation and permeability. Compared with defects of conventional building materials, the use of high-performance building materials can promote the quality of buildings, reduce the improper use or overuse of building materials and also promote the level of the living environment. For instance, we can use the high-performance sound insulation materials to promote the quality of sound environment; or use highly permeable paving units to strengthen the water retention capacity of the base, all these are where the new values of high-performance green building materials lie, and also with its help to promote the combination of green technology with architecture, the cross-field integration of industry including the academic circles, research and development so as to improve the architecture value and bring the innovation of architectural industry as a whole. |
(4) Recycling Green Building Material：
[Reduce],[Reuse],[Recycle]
Recycling green building materials refer to those building materials diverted from other building materials or reproduced from other materials, namely, reclaim the waste or discarded materials to produce the building materials. On the basis of ensuring the performance of materials we should limit the stipulations on the use over the harmful waste materials and avoiding the secondary pollution with bad influence over the health. The regulation on source-oriented reclamation from the wastes is formulated and the ratio of reclaimed wastes to recyclable building materials is defined.
For the performance of recyclable building materials, it is designed with priority to reclaim nine kinds of construction debris for reuse and to multiply the use of recycling green building materials through the public engineering procurement channel, and also to strengthen the acceptance of the recyclable building materials through coordination with relevant control measures for waste treatment.
In addition to above requirements for health, high-performance, recycling and ecology, general rules of the Green Building Material will be formulated and will serve as the basic benchmark which four assessment items should meet. It is intended to pick up the building materials with stable performance through audit for assessment items, which can meet the basic characteristics of green building materials and control the manufacturing process. |
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| Some part of above document content extract from Taiwan Architecture & Building Center, please visit the website http://www.cabc.org.tw/gbm/en/HTML/website/index.asp to obtain further the detail. |
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