Public Construction Commission Deputy Minister Yen Chiu-jung gives a public-interest lecture for the "Hung Chun-pei Culture and Education Foundation"

(Taiwan Business News) Humanity today faces severe challenges including global warming, climate change, environmental deterioration and the gradual depletion of natural resources, caused by over-development of the environment and over-consumption of resources under industrialization. Public facilities are by purpose of a public-interest nature in serving the public. But on the other hand, the very existence of public facilities is also a kind of harm to the original environment; regardless of scale, every stage from construction, management and maintenance to decommissioning consumes large amounts of resources and causes environmental impacts of varying degrees. Taiwan's public works have traditionally been carried out under the old mindset of "man can conquer nature," purely engineering-based considerations, and a lack of integration with independent thinking at each stage that ignores the overall environment, resulting in over-development of land, environmental destruction, massive waste of resources, and poor usage effectiveness (such as "mosquito halls"). Facing current environmental challenges, the traditional old mindset no longer meets the needs of the times and must be re-examined and adjusted.

Public Construction Commission Deputy Minister Yen Chiu-jung public-interest lecture: Sustainable engineering, benefiting the nation and its people

Taiwan Business News and the Hung Chun-pei Culture and Education Foundation last Sunday invited Public Construction Commission Deputy Minister Yen Chiu-jung to give a keynote lecture titled "Sustainable Engineering Benefits the Nation and Its People." Deputy Minister Yen Chiu-jung spoke about sustainable engineering based on his years of practical experience in public works construction and his vision for promoting future development, and the audience benefited greatly.

Given Taiwan's current infrastructure and economic development needs, investment in major public works remains one of the important strategies adopted by the government. In 2008, the government planned the Twelve Major Projects for Loving Taiwan, with a planned investment of NT$3.99 trillion over eight years, averaging nearly NT$500 billion per year. Compared with the government's annual engineering procurement amount of about NT$370 billion in the past two years, it can be foreseen that various major public works will break ground one after another in the future. In January 2010, the government announced that the environmental impact assessment of the Suhua Highway Improvement Project had passed with conditions. This will be another road (tunnel) project passing through a sensitive geological area after the Hsuehshan Tunnel, and the geological safety and ecological environment along the route as well as the safety of the project have become the focus of continuous controversy. For Taiwan, which lacks natural resources and has over-developed land, under the premise of overall environmental sustainable development, how public works investment can balance environmental protection, public-interest needs and economic development, and achieve energy saving and carbon reduction and environmentally sustainable development, is an important direction for promoting sustainable public works.

Compared with ecological engineering, which focuses only on ecological thinking, "sustainable public works" refers to public works planned, built, operated and managed in line with environmental conservation, social justice and economic development, with "energy saving and carbon reduction" as the core focus of promotion. Under the principle of maintaining the service quality and usage effectiveness that public facilities should have, it achieves effective use of limited resources while reducing impacts on the overall environment. "Sustainable public works" takes the full life cycle as its core framework. From the feasibility assessment, planning and design, engineering construction, maintenance and management, to decommissioning of a public works project, considerations of sustainable development and energy saving and carbon reduction are incorporated into every link, and the full life cycle is treated as a whole for integrated thinking and planning.

Public works must be well managed structurally across the full life cycle in order to achieve the purpose of energy saving and carbon reduction. Therefore, the Public Construction Commission constructed four green elements (green environment, green methods, green materials and green energy). In recent years, the government has actively incorporated "green elements" into various policy contents. The "Program for Revitalizing the Economy and Expanding Public Construction Investment," approved by the Executive Yuan in 2009, stated that the design of various public construction projects should adopt green methods, green materials and green design consistent with environmental protection and the concept of energy saving and carbon reduction, and incorporate the concept of energy saving and carbon reduction and the installation of renewable energy, and stated that the "green elements" principle should be no less than 10% of the budget.

Creating a green environment is the primary task of sustainable public works. In the initial engineering design and construction process, ecological environment surveys and environmental design should be properly carried out. By drawing on the principles of "avoidance, mitigation and compensation" from past ecological engineering efforts, excessive disturbance and damage to the original ecological environment should be avoided, creating an engineering environment that coexists with natural ecology. This is an important concept and goal in developing sustainable public works.

The creation of a green environment, in addition to conserving the original ecological environment and achieving the goals of energy saving and carbon reduction, is also quite helpful for climate regulation (reducing the urban heat island effect) and improving the quality of the living environment. The methods and directions of thinking for "creating a green environment" are listed below as examples, and can be applied as appropriate according to actual project needs.

1. Assess a reasonable construction scale to reduce impacts on the ecological environment:

The execution of a project will inevitably have a certain degree of impact on the ecological environment of the site and its surroundings. Therefore, in addition to the necessity of the project and site selection, which must be truly assessed and reviewed from the very beginning, the construction scale must also take into account the smallest reasonable construction scale. The smaller the construction scale, the smaller the disturbance to the ecological environment. Avoiding the design of oversized projects that do not meet actual needs can also achieve optimal and highly effective use of resources.

2. The principles of avoidance, mitigation and compensation:

This means that when selecting project sites and delineating areas, important ecological environments or ecologically sensitive areas within the scope should be avoided. If complete avoidance is not possible, then the project's impact on the environment should be mitigated as much as possible, and subsequent compensation for the original environment should be considered, so as to reduce the project's impact on the original ecological environment.

3. Ecological environment conservation:

Maintain the original ecological environment (such as wildlife and plant habitats and ecosystems), reduce pollution, and create an environment with biodiversity. Specific measures include: in the planning and design of public works, high-quality site environment design should be carried out, using the principles of "avoidance, mitigation and compensation" to reduce impacts on the original ecological environment; as well as natural drainage, rainwater (wastewater) recycling systems, ecological ponds, multi-layered planting, use of native species, habitat compensation, wildlife corridors, and so on.

4. Landscape greening:

Plant appropriate various plants in the natural soil layer within the site and in the covering soil layer on related facilities to increase the greened area. In addition to beautifying the environment, regulating temperature and improving environmental comfort, landscape greening also has a positive carbon sequestration effect, reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This includes: ecological greening, wall greening, wall greening irrigation, artificial ground greening technology, greening drainage and waterproofing technology, greening windproof technology, and so on.

5. Site water retention:

This refers to the ability of the natural soil layer and artificial soil layers within the site to retain moisture and store rainwater. Proper site drainage design can effectively reduce surface runoff from rainfall, lower the runoff load on downstream waterways, and enhance the oxygen-containing benefit of groundwater. Specific measures include: using permeable paving, setting up detention ponds, underground storage and infiltration facilities, and using gravity drainage facilities on hillside land.

6. Use of natural materials:

The application of natural materials is an important practice in creating a green environment. Avoid excessive construction of man-made objects, and through extensive use of various natural materials from the natural environment, such as applying grasses, flowers, trees or rubble in slope vegetation (net-hung vegetation), the environmental impact of using non-natural materials can be reduced.

7. Reduce slope excavation:

As far as possible, do not disturb slopes that are already stable, so as to reduce the impact of construction on the site environment, maintain the stability of the original slope and protect the surrounding environment.

8. Energy-saving design:

During the daily operation stage of public facilities, air conditioning and lighting energy consumption account for the vast majority of a building's overall energy consumption. In addition to adopting energy-saving equipment (such as power-saving lighting and water-saving devices) to reduce energy consumption, creativity can be brought into play through the design of the building itself to create a naturally energy-saving and carbon-reducing environment. For example: use natural lighting to reduce the need for artificial lighting, and use natural ventilation and wall (window) insulation design to reduce air conditioning energy consumption. Wall vegetation greening and green roof design can also effectively absorb thermal radiation to achieve energy saving and carbon reduction.

Hung Chun-pei Culture and Education Foundation 2014 public-interest lecture