EcoBalance is one of the most significant life cycle analysis (LCA) expert gatherings. This year, it took place in Sendai, Japan. More than 650 LCA experts exchanged ideas and discussed innovations to foster sustainable development practices.
Through the work of Koji Negishi, our LCA Expert, and Danilo Ebbinghaus Carrari, our Climate resilience Expert, ORIS was rewarded with the EcoBalance Best Business Practice award.
The combination of life cycle thinking and climate resilience makes the ORIS platform unique. It provides its customers with sustainable, long-term, and cost-effective infrastructure schemes.
A recognition for LCA and climate resilience
This award embodies what is now mandatory when conceiving and implementing infrastructure schemes: Life Cycle Assessment and climate resilience.
At ORIS, LCA enables engineers to compare the carbon footprint of different design options. We also use LCA to determine at what level our company can reduce its carbon footprint.
As for climate resilience, Danilo Ebbinghaus Carrari, our Climate resilience Expert, even created a unique methodology tailored to our platform's use.
Coupling LCA and climate resilience fosters sustainability. It is the only way to reduce carbon footprints and ensure communities' lasting infrastructure despite climate change risks on networks.
How does LCA work in linear infrastructure exactly?
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a comprehensive methodology for evaluating the environmental impacts of all life cycle stages of a studied system.
LCA is crucial in conceiving and optimising the sustainability of linear infrastructure projects like roads and railways.
Here are a few examples of how LCA works in this context:
Comprehensive environmental impact analysis
LCA enables a holistic evaluation of the environmental impacts associated with linear infrastructure throughout its entire life cycle:
- Production phase: Assesses the environmental effects of obtaining materials for construction, including raw material extraction, their transportation, to product manufacturing.
- Transportation phase: Evaluates impacts of supplying materials to the construction site
- Construction phase: Evaluates impacts from construction activities and equipment use
- Use phase: Analyses long-term maintenance and effects during the infrastructure's operational life
- End-of-life phase: Examines impacts of decommissioning, recycling, or repurposing
Sustainable decision-making for designs
LCA helps in selecting the most environmentally conscious design for linear infrastructure in 4 steps:
- Assess base design to identify area of focus for more sustainable solutions
- Benchmark alternative solutions with a focus on big impact reduction
- Compare designs based on key performance indicators
- Decide a final solution to achieve global objectives
What is climate resilience?
Climate resilience in linear infrastructure is the ability of transportation systems like roads, railways, and pipelines to withstand and maintain their design functionality and performance under adverse or extreme climatic conditions.
Here are some critical aspects of climate resilience for linear infrastructure:
Some adaptive design and engineering practices
- Flood-resilient structure: Designing roads, railways, and other infrastructure to be more hydrologically transparent to statistically probable flood events
- Heat-resistant materials: Using materials that can withstand extreme heat waves and minimise heat absorption to avoid structural and irreversible damages
- Flexible design: Comparing adaptability of different possible designs to accommodate future climate scenarios and allow for easy upgrades
ORIS Climate Resilience Methodology
Through our climate resilience methodology, established by Danilo Ebbinghaus Carrari, we were able to calculate a unified resilience risk score relying on 3 key pillars:
- Climate screening to identify, evaluate, and map climate exposures, such as heat, floods, and freeze-thaw cycles, according to climate projections that follow IPCC-shared socioeconomic pathways
- Infrastructure vulnerability analysis to understand how vulnerable an infrastructure is through evaluation of its surface layer condition and traffic
- Social & economic impact identification to identify and map social and economic impacts that climate change could cause to nearby communities and local economy
The methodology is continuously evolving to address more hazards and account for a broader multitude of impacts.
Why should we incorporate both LCA and climate resilience in the infrastructure industry?
By employing LCA, designers and engineers can significantly reduce linear infrastructure projects' environmental footprint, potentially achieving 15% to 50% carbon reductions.
This approach minimises ecological impact and often leads to cost savings and improved long-term infrastructure sustainability.
Thinking long-term is essential when conceiving infrastructure schemes, especially to foresee what a road network will look like 50 years from now. Climate change impacts the longevity of our roads.
Considering climate resilience through adaptations and mitigations represents the logical way to conceive infrastructure projects lasting more than 20 years.
What is EcoBalance?
EcoBalance is an international conference organised by the Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan (ILCAJ). The life cycle concept is at the heart of every conference, which takes place every two years.
LCA experts meet to discuss new methods or innovations in their field and how they can evaluate environmental performances and results...
It is a privilege for our colleague, Koji Negishi, to present his and Danilo Ebbinghaus Carrari’s work at this year’s EcoBalance.
It is a privilege for us at ORIS to combine LCA and climate resilience through our talented experts and use these methodologies to serve our customers.
This award proves that sustainability in infrastructure is indeed possible. It requires scientific expertise, LCA and climate resilience, civil engineering expertise, an AI and data-driven approach, and results, all delivered through a digital solution: the ORIS platform.
