The main works of the project include "assist in maintaining the operation of low-carbon communities and participate in low-carbon sustainable certificated evaluation", "expand and establish low-carbon sustainable communities to create local features and highlights", "match the cooperation with the enterprises and property management industries to construct low-carbon sustainable demonstration communities", and "market and promote of low-carbon sustainable communities performances to deeply cultivate social concept of low-carbon sustainable ".
Since 2010, Environmental Protection Administration of R.O.C. (Taiwan) has been implementing the low-carbon sustainable community program and building low-carbon measures and creating a low-carbon environment. Since then, there are 114 demonstration communities that have been consulted, duplicated their successful experiences to neighbor villages and gradually build a regional low-carbon living area. We definite village level as the scope of “low carbon sustainable community" by this project.
There are a total of 114 low-carbon communities selected by the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau and expert team. According to their differences in land use zones and industrial types, they are divided into urban (40, 35%) communities and rural (74, 65%) communities. The project will keep using low-carbon sustainable certificated mechanism to evaluate their performances and help more low-carbon communities to participate this program.
With 6 low carbon dimensions and 102 action items, including bio-greening, green energy saving, green transportation, recycling, low-carbon life and sustainable management, we’d view the implementation of low-carbon community performance.
The statistics showed that the ratio of community implementation, "ecological greening" and "green energy saving" were the most popular in the community. “Ecological greening" aimed at unused space green landscaping, forestation of native trees, and community farms. "Green energy saving" intended to promote or replace indoor use energy-saving lamps, set up solar energy photovoltaic systems, and promoted using energy-saving lamps in temples. Until 2016, there were 15 communities under review, 6 communities as bronze candidates, 71 communities awarded bronze certification, 3 communities as silver candidates, and 19 communities awarded silver certification.
Until 2016, there were 15 communities under review, 6 communities as bronze candidates, 71 communities awarded as bronze certification, 3 communities as silver candidates, and 19 communities awarded as silver certification.
We organized a consultation team and provided information about subsidy from government. Starting from running 4 courses and 5 demonstrations on low carbon community, consensuses were reached when knowledge and skills of volunteers in communities were improved.
Considering the requirements and living quality of residents and environment as well, the communities acted on the experts’ recommendations and adopted the measures which have less negative impact on the environment and need less maintenance costs. To achieve sustainability, one should balance human resource, finance and environment. Furthermore, a comprehensive long-term plan helped to integrate external resource, raise funds by the community itself and finally reach the goals step by step.
In addition to subsidy, this project worked as matching platform that allowed the communities to connect directly with enterprises. During the execution of the project, Sinyi Realty, Toyota and Hitachi engaged in the constructions of low-carbon facilities in Taipei Tengyun Village, Tainan Jinhua Village, Ilan Houpi Community and Hinchou Hujing Village. Muyen-Zhishan, a painting vendor, conducted field trial toward the implementation of insulation paint on the civil garden in Taipei Rixiang Village. Chunghwa Telecom Foundation held the“Indigenous Home Stay”documentary filming activity, providing college students the opportunity to record their experiences in Ilan Houpi Community with their cameras.
The project helped the corporations to develop strategic plan for promoting energy-saving according to 6 low carbon dimensions at different stage. 2 communities have installed energy management system and 2 demonstrations have been held to improve energy management abilities including usual inspection, recognition of abnormal electric consumption and application of historic electricity data.
During the process of resource inventory as part of environmental education, the project helped Taichung Zhebu Village to accomplish green map. After realizing its features, we developed several lesson plans including “Grandpa Flower going to mountain and harvesting cauliflowers” and “Twisting, Affection, Red, Soil”. 2 cultivating courses have been held to improve the skills of community volunteers in implementing environmental lesson plans.
We further concluded 35 applicable adaptive strategies including creating a hazard map and inspection of drainage system according to 8 main scopes mentioned by National Climate Change Adaptation Project.
To expand the promotion effectiveness, the project emphasized on 6 communities and distinguished their management strategies and local characteristics. Then the measures taken by the 6 communities were promoted to neighboring region to create micro low-carbon life circle. For example, Taipei Rixiang Village used “Vagrant Plant ATM” as a platform and connected with civic garden to broaden the greening areas. Taoyuan Zhongsheng Village started from resource recovery, living a low-carbon life style through group purchase and flea market; meanwhile the measures were extended to nearby Zhoangping Village. New Taipei City Shunde Village expanded greening area along the highway slope. Taoyuan Jinhwa Village utilized used coffee grounds from neighboring stores as garden compost. Miaoli Gangchian Village with natural wetland use water resource in a more flexible manner to achieve low-carbon life. Tainan Jinhua Village has already built a green energy recycling life circle.
The implementation outcome can be classified into quantitative and qualitative indicators. There are four quantitative indicators to evaluate the function of low-carbon communities including “ecological greening”, “renewable energy and power saving”, “green transportation” and “source circulation”. Total amount of carbon dioxide reduction was approximately 66,288 kilograms in 2016 and the accumulated amount reached to 5,943,669 kilograms during the period between 2010 and 2016. The adoption of ecological greening accounted for 80.0% of carbon reduction followed by 19.6% of renewable energy and power saving. In general, ecological greening is still the most common strategies adopted for CO2 reduction in communities. The qualitative indicators for CO2 reduction was evaluated by “low-carbon living” and “sustainable management”. The three main indicators were “volunteer training”, “conducting low-carbon activities” and “promoting the idea of eating together and eating organic”.
As there are wider issues involved in low-carbon community development, we held 5 advisory committees on the challenges the community might encounter and were categorized into “people”, “event” and “thing”. For people, concerning about diverse civic participation, young man resource should introduced by inter-department to conclude developing consensus and maintain community operation. For events, professional counseling team helped to integrate external resource such as experts and enterprises. Star communities were regarded as pioneers and empirical trial field, which will act as important model for the government to promote low-carbon community. For thing, governmental resource can be integrated and placed into the information network which can be reference or historical records for the community. Integrating and introducing of young man resource may overcome difficulties for low-carbon development and be the key point to activate community industry.
