Estimating carbon emission of rigid pavement: a case study of Palur Flyover

Abstract

All construction activities will inevitably produce CO2 emissions from the production process of materials, transportation, the usage of plant and equipment, the construction process, up to building demolition. Therefore, it is very important to understand the construction process and the amount of CO2 emissions released at each stage of the construction process. This research aims to estimate the amount of CO2 emissions during the construction process of a rigid pavement project. Data collection is done by observing rigid pavement of Palur Flyover project as a case study. The results show the total CO2 emissions during the construction process equals 92.901 tonnes CO2e, consisting of 91.334 tonnes CO2e (98.3%) of off-site activities, and 1.567 tonnes CO2e (1.7%) of on-site activities. The highest emission from off-site activities coming from material production of cement and steel rebars of 88.166 tonnes CO2e (94.9%), and the material transportation process of 3.168 tonnes CO2e (3.4%). This research shows that off-site construction activities, i.e. material production and transportation significantly influence the extent of CO2 emissions in this rigid pavement project. Therefore, it is recommended that strategic efforts for reducing the CO2 emissions of other typical rigid pavement projects should focus on these two.