Strengthening Taiwan’s Green Building Certification System from Aspects of Productivity and Energy Costs to Provide a Healthier Workplace

This study estimates the relationship between poor indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and the increasing labor costs in green buildings in Taiwan. Specifically, poor performance of IEQ including HVAC, lighting, and indoor air quality, influences the health and well-being of occupants and leads to worse productivity, ultimately causing increased personnel cost. In Taiwan’s green building certification (GBC) system, the energy-savings category is mandatory while the IEQ category is only optional. It means that certified building cases may not reach the expected level in IEQ. Thus, this study reviews the thermal environment, indoor air quality (IAQ), and illumination performances of IEQ-certified and non-IEQ-certified buildings in 20 green buildings. Building energy and IEQ simulations were conducted to analyze the relationships between indoor comfort, energy cost, and personnel cost in green buildings. The results show that IEQ-certified green buildings averagely perform better than non-IEQ-certified ones in the aspects of IEQ and building costs. Besides, 3 of 13 non-IEQ-certified green buildings undertake extremely high additional expenditure for the poor IEQ. The results correspond to some previous findings that green-certified buildings do not necessarily guarantee good building performance. This study further inspects the pros and cons of Taiwan’s GBC system and proposes recommendations against its insufficient IEQ evaluation category. As the trade-off of energy-saving benefits with health and well-being in green buildings has always been a concern, this study aims to stimulate more quantitative research and promote a more comprehensive green building certification system in Taiwan.

Green claims, green washing and consumer protection in the European Union

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer some reflection on the importance of reliable green claims to encourage sustainable production. The role of market is fundamental. Businesses and consumers are both involved in achieving environmental protection objectives. There is the real risk of the phenomenon of so-called green washing or misleading marketing. The problem arises of verifying the reliability of green claims to prevent competitive elements from become distorting factors of competition. Design/methodology/approach Based on the analysis of a European programme, the author shows how in Italy there is a dangerous lack of consumer protection. For this reason the European and national authorities have provided that green claims must be true, reliable, verifiable and comparable, but it is necessary that consumers be protected, through a certification system that makes it possible to certify the veracity of green claims. The problem is that a number of certification systems have been adopted in Europe which undermine the competitiveness of the market for green products. Findings This work aims to identify the tools necessary to make green indications more reliable, but above all to create a common methodology on which to base them. In this direction, companies wishing to advertise the ecological characteristics of their products should be required to provide the supporting demonstrations on the basis of a standard methodology assessing their actual environmental impact. Originality/value This work will examine the problem of green washing and the importance of reliable green claims for environmental protection. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the original work of the author and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

Analysis of Consumer Preference for Green Tea with Eco-Friendly Certification in China

The eco-friendly certification system is designed to ensure safe agricultural products to consumers while minimizing environmental pollution. However, despite its advantages, it is not widely adopted due to a possible decrease of farmers’ income. In order to provide implication for activating the eco-friendly certification system, this paper examines the attributes of green tea which affect consumers’ preferences and estimates consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the eco-friendly certification in China. A choice experiment survey is employed for data collection, and the random utility model is used to estimate the preference for the certification and quality of green tea. The attribute that yields the highest marginal WTP turns out to be the organic certification for which WTP is $115.9/250g higher than for no certification. Also, the analytical results indicate that the group with high trust is willing to pay up to $214.6/250g more for green tea with organic certification compared to the one with no certification. The empirical results suggest that it is important to build the consumers’ awareness and trust toward the certification to activate the eco-friendly certification system.

To the issue of prospects and problems of organic production of agricultural products in Ukraine

Organizational production of agricultural products is used to preserve the natural environment and to preserve the quality of the products. The development of organic wines in the light of 100 years and over the course of the period has become insane, as for the correct organization of it, you can preserve ecological, social, and commercial transfers. The organizational structure has become a warehouse part of the bio-economy and circular economy, which is a priority for the economic development of the European Union, the USA, Great Britain, the Great Britain, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the United States of America. For determining the prospects and problems of organic production of agricultural products, general scientific methods were used such as publicity, systematization, analysis, and synthesis, of the scientific literature and normative documents. For an additional analysis of regulatory documents, a procedure for certifying the authorities of the United States, the European Union and Ukraine has been established. Ukraine, in turn, began to take the first steps towards organic production in the late 1990s. It was at this time that she began to grow organic grain and opened export lines for its transportation to other countries, mainly Europe. Ukraine remains a leader in the production and export of organic cereals. Export competitive advantages of national agar products are lower production costs and logistics support. Ukraine continues to increase its organic production capacity - an increasing number of operators are appearing in this sector of agricultural production. As of 2019, the share of organic production of crop products in Ukraine is 1.4% (5th place in the world in terms of growth rate of organic agriculture), which is 467.9 thousand hectares of the total area of agricultural land in 32, 7 million hectares, as well as 470 operators of organic production. The dynamics of changes in organic agricultural production in Ukraine indicates a general trend of increasing their number, but in some periods, there is a decrease due to the economic and political situation in the country and changes in legislation in this area. Ukraine has significant advantages of organic production, which include a high level of soil fertility, favorable climatic conditions, traditional orientation as an agrarian state. Also, the price of Ukrainian products is lower than the minimum price of organic products of European countries. In the organic production of crops use methods that optimize the biological activity of soils, provide a balanced supply of nutrients to plants. At the same time, there are problems in Ukraine that hinder the development of organic production. In particular, the diversity of the territory in terms of the level of pollution of environmental components, lack of practical application of innovations and modern technologies of agricultural production. The lack of state support for organic producers and state certification system (including qualified specialists for its implementation). Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of October 21, 2020, № 1032 "On approval of the Procedure for certification of organic production and / or circulation of organic products and amendments to the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of October 23, 2019, № 970" approved the stages of certification. Was made the comparison of approaches to the certification of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine shows that they meet European and American standards. However, the absence of a state certification body that certifies organic producers and accredits private certification bodies makes it impossible for state control over organic market operators and the functioning of state certification. The current certification system in Ukraine does not cover the issue of soil contamination or other components of environment, which may affect the quality and safety of organic products. In Ukraine, enterprises in various sectors of the economy use outdated technologies, which can cause soil contamination of agricultural lands, and, accordingly, affect the quality of organic products. Currently, the Laws of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers do not require: the location of the organic agricultural enterprise; content of harmful substances in the soil (including the content of radionuclides and pesticide residues); content in the soil of nutrients that can ensure the production of quality agricultural products and confirm the activities of the farm aimed at maintaining soil fertility. To guarantee the quality of organic products, it is advisable in the certification procedure to consider the level of fertility and soil contamination of agricultural lands, as well as the availability of sources of environmental pollution in the location of the organic producer. Given the above, it is advisable to introduce criteria for assessing the compliance of soils with the requirements of organic production. This approach can guarantee the safety and quality of organic products. During the organization of organic production of agricultural products in Ukraine, the issues of criteria for assessing compliance with regulatory requirements, documentation to be kept by the operator of organic production, etc.

The Impact of Certification Systems for Architectural Solutions in Green Office Buildings in the Perspective of Occupant Well-Being

The green building certification system has long-lasting benefits by improving building efficiency and sustainability. The ultimate goal of such classification is to promote the preservation of the global environment as well as the occupants’ well-being and their health. In this paper, we present examples of buildings that have been designed and built in Poland and have been certified with BREEAM, LEED and WELL. Our study investigates human factors in certification systems and examines the WELL Building Standard as a supplement to other green systems, which will probably be the most popular in the future. The green building movement should prioritize pro-human factors and the associated environmental beliefs to improve indoor environment quality for users’ needs. We present this matter on the example of the Polish office space market, providing statistics and analyzing the architecture of six certified office buildings from Warsaw, Poznań and Wrocław. They are a representative sample of buildings designed following the certification regime. It was demonstrated how this aids in improving work comfort, enhances the program of office spaces and the organization of service spaces within buildings, which increases the rank of this architecture and positively affects the urban environment.

The interaction relationships among agricultural certification labels or brands: evidence from Chinese consumer preference for fresh produce

China uses a multilevel agricultural certification system; however, its implications are not well understood. In this study, we used tomatoes as an example in a series of Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction experiments to determine consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) toward three safety certification labels and two kinds of brands. Then, based on the auction experiment results, we designed a menu-based choice experiment to assess the interaction relationships between the safety certification labels and brands. The results showed that consumers were generally willing to pay a premium for tomatoes with safety-certified labels (especially for organic labels) and brands (especially for the enterprise brand). Providing consumers with additional information regarding the certification remarkably improved their WTP for tomatoes with organic and green labels. The menu-based choice experiment suggested that the organic and green labels were found to be substitutes. In addition, organic and green labels could not substitute the enterprise brand, whereas the converse of this relationship was true. Finally, a mutual substitution relationship was observed between hazard-free label and enterprise brand. Our research enables producers to consider the interaction between certification strategies and brand strategies. Therefore, marketers and policymakers should take steps to promote and expand consumers’ knowledge on certification, as it could benefit the development of certified food.