Seeking superlative green building recognition, the owners of TAIPEI 101 are shooting for platinum certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards for an existing building.

The 101-story, more than 2.5-million-square-foot sky tower stands at 1,667 feet. It was the tallest building in the world from 2004 until this year, when the Burj Khalifa in Dubai opened.

Today, TAIPEI 101 Chairperson & President Harace Lin applied for LEED-Platinum certification under the criteria set for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance.

If successful, TAIPEI 101 would be the tallest existing building to attain LEED-EBOM certification at the highest level possible (the other designations in the USGBC rating and assessment system are basic, silver and gold certification).

Designed to use less energy and water and provide better indoor air quality than a traditionaly built skyscraper of comparable size, TAIPEI 101 embarked on an 18-month renovation to increase efficiency and further reduce the building's environmental footprint, the firm announced last November.

At the time, the company said it planned to seek gold certification under LEED-EBOM standards. But since then, the upgrades to the building and its systems and improved building performance persuaded TAIPEI 101 leaders to reach for the highest level of USGBC recognition.

The company's project partners for the renovation included SL+A International Asia Inc., Siemens and EcoTech International Inc. GreenerBuildings.com Executive Editor Rob Watson is the chairman, CEO and chief scientist of EcoTech.

Top image courtesy of TAIPEI 101. Inset image CC licensed by wikimedia user Connor Powell.