Facilitating DfE in enterprises: the Taiwan Green Design Network

Taiwan has been experiencing good economic growth in the last few decades and electronic industry contributes significantly to the export in recent years. The European and Japanese requirements on electronic products, electrical products and automobile production will put a lot of restrictions on the export items in these areas in the next few years to come. Taiwan government has recognized the need and understood that green products will be able to meet future requirements and compete for global market. Since three years ago, seminar, workshop and international conference have been held to promote green design in Taiwan, especially in the key industries. At the same time, technical publications were produced and relevant design tools were developed to help industries to go for green design or design for environment, design for recycling and so on. The Green Design Network, sponsored by the government, is developed as an information platform to provide information on tools, local and international activities, relevant regulations, design case studies, reference and web sites, promoting organizations and definitions, etc to facilitate the industries to perform green design. The launching of the network is a pilot in Asia and may be expanded in future to regional and international level.