Carbon Assessment for Road Infrastructure

PROJECT BRIEF

South Gloucestershire Council declared a Climate Emergency in 2019 and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030. The Council commissioned Metis to undertake a carbon assessment of two public realm schemes and six capital maintenance programmes. The purpose of the work was to provide the first step in understanding the carbon impacts of Council road infrastructure capital and maintenance activities.

OUR APPROACH

• Application and further development of our carbon assessment tool for infrastructure 
• Implement a PAS 2080 (Modular Approach to Evaluate Life-Cycle Carbon) compliant methodology
• Assessed two public realm projects including footbridges, environmental enhancements, safety improvements and pavement reconstruction
• Assessed six maintenance programmes including standard re-surfacing, hot rolled asphalt, micro asphalt and footpath reconstruction
• Integrated the clients Bill of Quantities into our activities database to assess production, transport, construction, maintenance and disposal emissions
• Analysed of outputs to show carbon contributions at each step in the scheme life-cycle 
• Developed a dashboard for the tool to allow client analysis of individual activities within each major step of the scheme life-cycle
• Assessed options for carbon reduction and offsetting

PROJECT OUTCOMES

This project delivered the following for South Gloucestershire:

• Detailed understanding of the carbon impacts of capital and maintenance activities for road infrastructure
• The potential costs of carbon reduction and / or offsetting for road infrastructure
• Insights on which parts of these schemes were the most carbon intensive (generally the materials used)
• Where to target lower carbon alternatives with the local supply chain
• Costed options for offsetting to manage residual carbon following reductions
• Recommendations to achieve independently certified carbon neutrality in the future