Transportation infrastructure impact: Energy and environmental life cycle assessment

Climate change calls for significant actions and methods. In this context, EU Green Public Procurement Criteria for Road Design, Construction and Maintenance, green products, and EU Environmental Product Declarations aim at providing experts and scientists with a new framework. Unfortunately, many classes of impact must be considered and this calls for algorithms and ideas to move towards recognised and stable assessments. Based on the above, this study aims at calculating the life-cycle energy and the environmental impacts pertaining to roads management, including materials production, transportation, construction, maintenance, rehabilitation, and operations, based on the ISO 14040 series. Several alternative scenarios in terms of bituminous mixtures (reclaimed asphalt pavements, waste plastics) and in terms of operations are considered. Authors set up and applied a systemic approach for energy and environmental assessment for the sake of all stakeholders. Results demonstrate that phases of analysis and innovation are crucial in assessing impacts. © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, London.