Establishing greenhouse gas emission benchmarks for the asphalt industry – Are short-term reduction targets feasible using current practice or are more extensive measures needed?

Abstract

The objective of this study was to calculate cradle-to-gate benchmarks for the embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of asphalt mixtures. Reference (median), target (10th percentile), and limit (80th percentile) benchmarks were calculated for nine mixture types using 606 mixtures. The following ranges for the specific benchmarks in terms of CO2-eq per ton were obtained: 41.2 to 66.7 (references), 31.2 to 52.9 (targets), and 44.8 to 75.3 (limits). It was found that the yearly embodied emissions could be reduced by 23.7% by aiming for the targets, which is just below the 25% reduction goal set in Belgium. However, these savings could be further increased to 29.3% considering consistent implementation of the most used best available technologies. Moreover, if the lowest 10th percentile of this scenario was targeted, an ambitious reduction potential of 39.2% was obtained. Consequently, a combination of more extreme mitigation strategies is required to achieve carbon neutrality.