Life-cycle assessment environmental sustainability in bridge design and maintenance

Abstract

Environmental sustainability issues are being considered across many construction sectors, emerging from global concerns on resource depletion and CO2 emissions from activities in the sector. Whilst construction sectors are addressing the environmental impact of their activities at the construction stage and the associated CO2 and GHG emissions, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment-an environmental tool) is not being fully factored into the early design stage of bridges to facilitate design choices. Face-to-face and in-depth semi-structured interviews were employed in this study, to reveal experts’ opinion on environmental considerations in bridge design and possibilities of integrating LCA in this process. Findings revealed that LCA incorporation into the design process will be a complex matter, as the design process is already intricate, and need for the bridge, access to future maintenance, use of quality materials, longevity and cost savings are more sustainability matters taken seriously, compared to life cycle environmental emissions. Moreover, the paucity of LCA awareness amongst bridge designers, along with keenness to execute clients’ requirement, mostly cost driven, further widens the gap. This study, therefore, provides four recommendations to bridge the identified gap: (1) detailed environmental matters such as CO2, NO2 and GHG emissions should be considered as design criteria; (2) encourage designers to highlight emerging environmental matters in the design brief; (3) LCA awareness should be heightened amongst bridge designers to increase potential usage; and (4) LCA damage indicators may be factored into the bridge design process.