Currently in the UK, carbon emissions associated with businesses activities has moved from policy requirements to definitive legal responsibilities following the UK's Climate Change Act (CCA) in 2008. Real and pressing need exists for a flexible and easy to use technique to enable businesses to assess their carbon emissions; following recent changes in legislation and regulations on environmental impacts of construction activities. The aim of this paper is to develop a methodology that can offer businesses a carbon Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool to identify emissions "hotspots" across its value chain, and inform a carbon reduction hierarchy. The approach employed is based on the methodology described in the Publicly Available Specification (PAS2050) protocol. The objective of the method is to identify where the largest production of emissions exists and provides for the biggest potential reduction within routine highway maintenance processes. The developed methodology framework offers businesses the potential to make informed decisions in carbon terms, by identifying and prioritizing areas of potential emissions reduction. Tables 2 Figures 6 Total 5472+ 2000= 7472 2 Itoya, Hazell, Ison, El-Hamalawi and Frost INTRODUCTIONThere is a growing consensus that human activities contribute significantly to the increasing concentration of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. These activities cover both individual and industrial activities and their associated energy use (1,2). This has raised a greater awareness and understanding of the environment, and has also called for a change in energy use and other activities that emit carbon; to ensure that future economic development is achieved within economic, social and environmental limits. This is reflected in the UK by a legislative commitment to reduce Greenhouse Gas production (GHG) by at least 80% by 2050 from 1990 levels (1, 3). This places legal obligations on all sectors (including construction) to reduce their emissions, and defines strategies to meet this obligation. Reducing carbon emissions in construction processes is highly desirable given their impact.Furthermore, carbon emissions reduction is now becoming a contractual requirement and a major consideration in tender selection in both the UK and internationally, particularly for public sector clients. This emerging Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for new projects has placed the construction industry under pressure, particularly the civil infrastructure maintenance sector, to assess and reduce emissions. In the past, businesses wanting to assess their emissions have usually done so by focusing on activities under their immediate control, but recently, customers have required businesses to assess their emissions across their value chain. This is driven by the increasing demand for low-carbon goods and services, and the need to make costeffective investment decisions in carbon terms. The broader strategy by which this demand can be met in construction reach deep into every aspect of the built environment. Thi...
2 3 4 5Civil infrastructure, including the highway maintenance sector, is under increasing pressure to deliver 'low-carbon' services. Reducing this sector's 'carbon footprint' can help to meet targets set under the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon dioxide emissions reduction is now a legal requirement under the UK's Climate Change Act; infrastructure clients therefore require their supply chains to provide carbon footprint information. A new, more holistic, project-specific carbon footprinting approach is urgently needed to account for carbon in an integrated manner, identifying areas of carbon hot spots and developing a reduction hierarchy to support business decision making. In this paper a processbased carbon footprinting framework based on the PAS2050:2011 protocol is adopted. Results of case studies (focusing on the carbon footprint) of 'typical' UK highway maintenance processes are provided, namely pavement resurfacing, pavement marking, bulk lamp changing and grass cutting. These processes were selected across urban, semi-urban and rural site locations to investigate the significance of these locations on the carbon footprint. The results indicate the robustness of the PAS2050-compliant framework for highway maintenance carbon footprinting;areas of carbon hotspots and related reduction opportunities can be identified to inform the reduction hierarchy across the processes value chain. The research presented can be used as a framework to plan, evaluate and manage highway maintenance programmes and carbon budgets over the maintenance processes value chain.
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