Sustainable Highway Construction Guidebook

A critical review of life cycle assessment benchmarking methodologies for construction materials

“…For example, increasing the use of recycled materials, co-and by-products, and reduced energy-consumption technologies (e.g., reducing manufacturing temperatures) [9,39,43,50]. Construction products are an essential cornerstone for society and economies, and their manufacturing interacts with fresh water, the local ecosystem, neighbouring businesses, and natural resources [47]. In response to these detrimental impacts, interest in Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasing within the sector, to quantify current practice and reduce energy and materials consumption, and hazardous emissions, in order to reach current global sustainability targets (i.e.…”

“…As it stands, within the construction sector, the use of product category rules (PCRs) to generate environmental product declarations (EPDs) have made practice more harmonised. For example, in the pavement sector, the US National Asphalt Pavement Association's [48], Rangelov et al [56], and the Sustainable Highway Construction Guidebook [47] EPDs have been deemed appropriate for benchmarking activities. However, while the use of EPDs does generate harmonised LCA results, there is a lack of discussion on the creation of the benchmarks from a systematic or methodological point of view and on the variables present.…”