Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is robust and reliable. Although it may seem complex, it represents an opportunity for the entire linear infrastructure industry to use a widely recognised methodology to promote greater sustainability.

LCA: the methodology to foster sustainable infrastructure

Advocating LCA proves your commitment to working differently and taking a more global-friendly approach. The impacts of climate change are becoming more intense and recurrent, meaning the industry has to adapt and focus on carbon footprint and circular economy to foster decarbonisation.

That is why linear infrastructure has embraced LCA: it guides material suppliers, designers, contractors, and public authorities.

To sum up, Life Cycle Assessment:

• Drives evidence-based decision-making
• Helps you identify carbon emissions reduction possibilities

LCA represents a tool to support stakeholders in making informed decisions every step of the way.
To find out more about Life Cycle Assessment, its regulations and norms, check out this article:

What Is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)?

The first step in reducing carbon emissions is measuring them. You need to know the exact carbon footprint of your materials (raw extraction, manufacturing, transportation, maintenance, and end-of-life) and infrastructure projects (from the early design stage to the construction activities stage).

Use of LCA for materials

Did you know that materials account for 85% of a linear infrastructure construction project’s carbon emissions? Their impact is huge, so they must be considered when reducing carbon emissions. This is one of the reasons we decided to focus on materials at ORIS. 
The linear infrastructure industry now examines materials closely, considering this question: How can their carbon footprint be reduced?

As stated earlier, measuring a product’s carbon emissions is the first step to reducing them. The revised Construction Products Regulation (CPR) requires material suppliers to do this if they want to market their products in Europe.

We have developed our CO₂ Calculator for Aggregates to help material suppliers assess their aggregates’ carbon footprint easily and at an affordable price.

By applying LCA, stakeholders can make informed decisions that promote using low-carbon materials, optimise resource efficiency, reduce environmental harm, and improve the long-term sustainability of infrastructure projects. 
Here are a few concrete examples of LCA used to reduce the carbon footprint of materials.

Material selection and design optimisation

The choice of materials significantly impacts the carbon footprint of a project's construction. This is why the material selection itself is crucial. Hence, this first section focuses on material selection.

Example: When designing a highway, LCA can compare the environmental performance of different design options, considering factors like the embodied energy and the carbon footprint associated with each design option and the materials required for each of them.

This information guides designers to select design options that offer a better balance of performance and environmental sustainability.

Opting for low-carbon alternatives

Example: Conducting LCA can help designers identify low-carbon alternative materials by using different constituents in the formula. Low-carbon alternatives for concrete materials may include replacing CEM I with CEM II or III. Or, for example, incorporating recycled aggregates can further reduce the carbon footprint while promoting a circular economy.

Optimising resource efficiency

Example: LCA should be applied to identify opportunities to minimise waste and optimise material usage, ensuring that resources are used efficiently throughout the project lifecycle. 

Adding recycled materials reduces the consumption of natural resources and generally decreases manufacturing energy consumption.

Use of LCA for entire linear infrastructure projects

From planning to construction, the Life Cycle Assessment methodology provides a comprehensive, data-driven approach to measuring environmental impacts for all linear infrastructure projects (roads, highways, railways, pipelines, and bridges).
Here are a few use cases where LCA can dent a project’s carbon footprint. 

Planning and design phase

Just like the robustness and quality of your infrastructure project depends on this phase, so it is for reducing carbon emissions. Considering carbon reduction possibilities at the early planning and design stages is best because this phase determines the rest of your project.

(Original image source: World Green Building Council, 2019.)

This visual demonstrates that designers have the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions by 40-90% during the design stages. As you see, the opportunity to drastically reduce carbon emissions decreases once you progress beyond the planning and design stages.

During these stages, LCA can help you analyse different design options to evaluate each carbon footprint, resource consumption, and waste generation. This is transcribed, for example, by comparing a road made of conventional concrete with one made with recycled aggregates or low-carbon concrete. 

The earlier you assess your project’s carbon footprint, the easier it is to implement what’s necessary or to act accordingly to foster sustainability. And this is exactly what our users can do with the ORIS platform. Here are the results they can achieve with ORIS Materials Intelligence for standard infrastructure projects: 

• 50% carbon footprint reduction
• 80% of natural resources saved from extraction
• 30% cost optimisation

LCA helps you make data-driven decisions, enabling you to create the most sustainable and suitable project for its specificities. 

Material sourcing

LCA assesses the impacts of transportation and supply chains, encouraging sourcing of locally available materials to reduce the carbon footprint associated with long-distance transport. 

Circularity

Using recycled materials or increasing the recycled content of materials helps to reduce embodied carbon and virgin material consumption. If the infrastructure scheme includes roads made from asphalt, LCA can determine the best approach to asphalt recycling, where old asphalt is reused as part of new road construction.

Identifying opportunities for material reuse and recycling can significantly reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills and lower the environmental impact of disposal practices.

Construction and implementation

During the construction phase, LCA helps assess the environmental performance of machinery and equipment to ensure construction methods and activities are optimised for minimal environmental harm. For example, using energy-efficient machinery or low-carbon fuels in construction vehicles can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the project’s construction.

Operation phase

It is often the longest phase of a linear infrastructure project, and LCA plays an important role in assessing the ongoing environmental impacts during this time, including energy consumption, water use, maintenance requirements, and material wear and tear.

Example for energy use and emissions: In the case of highways or railways, LCA can assess the energy consumption of vehicles using the infrastructure, helping identify opportunities for electrification or other energy-efficient practices that reduce the carbon footprint.

LCA allows you to assess, benchmark, compare, and decide on every aspect of your linear infrastructure project. This methodology aims to foster sustainable project delivery overall. 

Indeed, LCA serves as a decision-support tool at every linear infrastructure project stage. It provides stakeholders with transparent data on the environmental impacts of various options, helping to balance economic, social, and environmental factors.

Do you need to be an expert in LCA?

Now that you understand the importance of LCA in enhancing sustainability in the linear infrastructure industry, you may wonder if you need to be an expert in Life Cycle Assessment.

Fortunately, no. And there is no need to hire an LCA consultant who will charge you a lot of money for many hours. You can benefit from LCA using the all-in-one ORIS platform, whether you’re a quarry owner, a project engineer, or a sustainability leader. 

LCA embodies the sustainability compass for linear infrastructure. And ORIS represents the sustainability accelerator. With the ORIS platform, stakeholders:

• Transform hours of analysis into minutes of actionable insights
• Optimises material usage across a project’s life cycle from raw extraction to construction activities (A1-A5)
• Enables data-driven decisions to reduce carbon footprint and costs

Ready to act now for sustainable infrastructure?