Advancing the Sustainability of Pavements: Methods of Quantification and Their Application

Friday, September 16, 2022
12 PM ET – 1 PM ET

The importance of considering sustainability beyond just economic viability is growing. This presentation will review the motivations for addressing the sustainability of pavement and the goals. The need for quantification to be able to move from process goals to performance goals will be discussed. The use of life cycle assessment (LCA) for quantifying performance indicators for environmental impacts and finite resource uses will be presented, including the development of frameworks, data, models, tools, and the use of results to support decision-making. Examples will be given for some actions that can be taken, and a review of current industry and government efforts underway toward the decarbonization of pavement systems by 2050 will be presented. Initial work on developing a Social LCA (S-LCA) framework will also be presented.

John Harvey is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis, the director of the UC Pavement Research Center, and the director of the City and County Pavement Improvement Center. He is a former chair of the Transportation Technology and Policy graduate group. He is the principal investigator for projects for research, development, and implementation for a wide range of pavement materials, design, asset management, cost, and environmental topics for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), FHWA, FAA, CalRecycle, the California Air Resources Board, the Transportation Research Board, other state DOTs and industries. He was previously a researcher and adjunct professor at UC Berkeley and worked in pavement consulting in Nigeria and Texas. He has a BSCE from Oregon State University and MS and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. He is the founder of the International Symposia for Life Cycle Assessment of Pavements. He is a professional civil engineer in California.