Using construction data and whole life cycle assessment to establish sustainable roadway performance benchmarks

Abstract

For the $100 billion per year road construction industry, effective sustainability management is hampered because there are few established data-driven sustainability benchmarks with which to judge best practices. Here, we first introduce 12 roadway construction sustainable performance metrics: water use, vegetated area, stormwater runoff treatment, lighting power, construction waste generation, local materials use, pedestrian area, bicycle facilities, recycled content, pavement reuse, project greenhouse gas emissions, and project energy consumption. Data from 33 projects are then used to provide quantitative measures for the performance metrics introduced in this study and establish sustainable performance benchmarks. Moreover, a whole roadway life cycle assessment carried out on these projects indicates that 1) it is not possible to include all project items in the analysis, 2) paving materials are the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption, and 3) it is possible to predict greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption based on project price alone.