Abstract Manager

Benchmarking the environmental impacts of the production of transportation materials, especially global warming potential (GWP), also known as the embodied carbon of a material, is essential for improving sustainability. The Ontario Road Builders Association (ORBA), with support from the National Research Council (NRC), undertook the development of a regionalized life cycle assessment (LCA) data set for asphalt mixtures produced in Ontario. The involvement of industry was identified as essential to this work at the very early stage, and as a result, a robust industry engagement and education process was developed including written materials like a bulleting and FAQ, recorded trainings, and webinars. Asphalt producers throughout the province delivered, voluntarily providing facility and mix data through a secure, asphalt specific data collection web interface.

Eight sub-classes of mixtures were identified for benchmarking. Data for each of the mix sub-classes was sorted, an Ontario-specific life cycle inventory (LCI) was created, average impacts calculated for the sub-classes, and an average EPD for each of the sub classes was written.

Key drivers of impacts were identified, including virgin binder percentage, RAP content, and aggregate percentage. The data were also examined for trends within the province, such as potential differences between urban and rural plants, or stationary and portable plants. The LCA and average mix EPDs developed for this work may now be used by the asphalt industry to more clearly understand its impacts and paths for improvement, as well as by researchers to integrate in further works, like whole pavement LCAs.