Green Roads Life Cycle Assessment for Sustainability

Shafiqul Alam, MIE Aust, CPEng., Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, Australia

Prof. Arun Kumar FIEAust, CPEng., Professor of Infrastructure management Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, Australia

Road infrastructure is one of the most expensive and extensive infrastructure assets of the built environment globally. In addition to the economic and social implications, this asset impacts the natural environment significantly during different phases of life e.g., construction, use, maintenance and end-of-life. Under this scenario, "Green Roads" is a rapidly growing concept around the world that focuses on development and maintenance of road infrastructure that cares for climate change phenomenon, depleting natural resources and the need of continuing socio-economic wellbeing. The "Green Roads" concept came up with the emergence of more popular "Green development" movement in place of earlier "sustainable development' movement; because of growing international concern for ecological aspects of the planet earth under the looming threat of climate change impacts. Sustainable development integrates three important dimensions of development; environment, equity, and economy; with a view to ensure continuation of ongoing development activity in a way that will not jeopardize the development need of the future generations. This paper summarizes the recent study findings to strengthen global effort for green roads development.