[New Taipei City News] The Green Organization held the Green Apple Environment Award ceremony on the 18th at Kensington Palace in London. The New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department won the award for its innovative thinking and successful establishment of an advanced digital environmental command center and an efficient environmental law enforcement system, led by Deputy Mayor Liu He-Ran and the environmental protection team. The New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department was also invited to serve as a “Green World Ambassador” and will participate in the certification ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London next spring (2025) to recognize New Taipei City’s outstanding contributions to environmental protection.
 
The Environmental Protection Department pointed out that the Green Apple Environment Award is regularly selected by the Green Organization in the UK. It aims to recognize institutions worldwide that excel in environmental management and innovation. The theme of this award is “Creating a Powerful and Efficient Environmental Protection System.” The New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department pioneered a digital command center, transforming traditional paper-based operations into electronic digital processes. This transformation successfully reduced nearly the use of nearly ten million sheets of paper and allowed the saved financial resources to be reinvested in the expansion of the command center.  The department further introduced advanced technologies such as smart data analysis, time-lapse photography, drone inspections, GPS positioning, and big data simulation analysis, significantly enhancing the efficiency and flexibility of environmental inspections. These innovations not only reduced the processing time for each case by more than one-third but also directly decreased the number of public complaints by 25%.
 
In terms of environmental law enforcement, when facing increasingly complex environmental crimes, the New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department not only makes good use of digital technology but has also established the “Environmental Inspection Special Case Team,” specifically tasked with handling cross-regional and cross-disciplinary environmental crime cases. This special case team combines the administrative investigation resources of various city government departments with criminal investigation expertise. Since its establishment in October 2019, it has cracked 391 major environmental violation cases, restored the national land environment in 190 instances (including the removal of 118 cases of state-owned land occupation and 72 pollution source), and successfully recovered illegal gains exceeding 430 million NTD. The outstanding performance of the special case team has also led New Taipei City to receive the Ministry of the Environment’s “Golden Environmental Award” for three consecutive years starting in 2022, recognizing its efforts in combating environmental crimes.
 
It is worth mentioning that the “Environmental Inspection Special Case Team” and the “Digital Command Center” are two key initiatives vigorously promoted by Deputy Mayor Liu He-Ran during his tenure as head of the New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department. He currently also serves as the convener of the “Environmental Inspection Special Case Team.” Upon receiving the award, Deputy Mayor Liu personally led the team to London to accept it. He stated, “Environmental protection is an important cornerstone of public safety. New Taipei City continues to optimize environmental management through digitization and technological upgrades, significantly enhancing the quality of life for its citizens. This award not only recognizes New Taipei City’s environmental work internationally but also fully demonstrates the city government’s innovation and efforts in the field of environmental protection.”
Deputy Mayor Liu further emphasized that New Taipei City will continue to promote innovation and improvements in the field of environmental protection, enhance digital management and environmental monitoring technology, and continue to advance the application of environmental protection technology, integrating cross-departmental resources to create a more sustainable and livable environment for its citizens.