Life Cycle Assessment for Transportation Infrastructure Policy Evaluation and Procurement for State and Local Governments

Abstract

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of our time, and achieving mitigation targets requires urgent action to identify and implement strategies for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, identifying, quantifying, and then selecting among the many possible strategies to achieve GHG reductions is difficult, especially without a standardized approach for comparison. Presenting alternatives in a mitigation supply curve is an approach that has been used previously to compare the costs and magnitude of mitigation potential for different strategies. Some of the critiques of this approach include the lack of a consequential perspective in determining mitigation and the lack of a life cycle perspective in quantifying mitigation and economic costs. This research uses the principles of consequential life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis to improve on the mitigation supply curve concept to support evaluation and procurement decisions for transportation infrastructure. Results from pilot studies for road infrastructure indicate that a consequential life cycle approach for mitigation supply curves is feasible and can support agency decision-making and communication regarding those decisions.

Keynote Presentation: Improving Pavement Sustainability through Integrated Design, Construction, Asset Management, LCA, LCCA, and S-LCA

“…The implementation of LCA in the pavement management system to calculate global warming potential is illustrated with an example. Another example looks at an approach called the marginal cost of abatement curve, or "supply curve", for assessing the cost effectiveness of different strategies for reducing environmental impacts [4].…”

“…"Sustainable" in the context of pavements refers to system characteristics that encompass a pavement's ability to [1] achieve the engineering goals for which it was constructed, [2] preserve and (ideally) restore surrounding ecosystems, [3] use financial, human, and environmental resources economically, and [4] meet basic human needs such as health, safety, equity, employment, comfort, and happiness [1]. Sustainability has always been the goal of pavement design, construction, and asset management, with a focus primarily on the engineering goal of handling motor vehicles, and the financial goal of minimizing either initial cost or life cycle cost.…”

Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the cement industry via value chain mitigation strategies

“…Table 1 presents criteria and strategies that decision-and policy-makers can use to include emissions reduction measures into climate action plans at national, state, and local government levels, along with examples and criteria significance. 146 Some of the issues surrounding the difficulties in decarbonizing cement production relate to the more complex supply chain of concrete construction, for which cement is just a part. Cement producers, concrete producers, designers, contractors, infrastructure managers, users, and governments have different motivations and consider different time horizons.…”

Rethinking environmental LCA life stages for transport infrastructure to facilitate holistic assessment

“…Transport infrastructure LCA has been used to compare competing transportation modes (e.g. high‐speed rail vs. air travel (Åkerman, 2011; Bueno, Hoyos, & Capellán‐Pérez, 2017; Chang et al., 2019; Chester & Horvath, 2012)), to identify the relative environmental impacts of different life stages (e.g., construction vs. operation (Chester & Horvath, 2009; Fridell, Bäckström, & Stripple, 2019)), to optimize infrastructure planning and design to meet environmental regulations (Brand, Tran, & Anable, 2012; Chester, Pincetl, Elizabeth, Eisenstein, & Matute, 2013; Harvey et al., 2019), and to facilitate multicriteria analysis of proposed transport infrastructure projects (Cristiano & Gonella, 2019; Manzo & Salling, 2016; Matos Silva, Serro, Dinis Ferreira, & Teotónio, 2019; Trigaux, Wijnants, Troyer, & Allacker, 2017).…”