It was just before dawn on a sweltering Taipei morning, and Pegatron Chairman T.H. Tung was still hunched over his desk analyzing energy portfolios, carbon emissions, government policies and decades of energy-related data from several countries.

It was just one of many sleepless nights Tung had spent in recent months as he tackled a daunting challenge facing not only his $40 billion electronics manufacturing empire but Taiwan as a whole: how to reconcile the tech industry’s massive energy demands with the urgent need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.