{"id":2611,"date":"2023-03-21T18:51:44","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T18:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/?p=2611"},"modified":"2025-08-12T20:28:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T20:28:20","slug":"using-lca-to-reduce-embodied-carbon-in-pavement-infrastructure-at-wsdot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/current-projects\/using-lca-to-reduce-embodied-carbon-in-pavement-infrastructure-at-wsdot\/","title":{"rendered":"Using LCA to Reduce Embodied Carbon in Pavement Infrastructure at WSDOT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The 2022 FHWA Climate Challenge included a call for state departments of transportation and other public sector stakeholders to explore the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental product declarations (EPDs) as a standard practice to inform more sustainable pavement material and design selection and to quantify the emissions and impacts of those practices. EPDs are transparent, objective reports that communicate what a product is made of and the life cycle environmental impacts of that product. LCA and EPDs are needed to credibly inventory carbon and determine greenhouse gas emissions. In response to the Climate Challenge, and in collaboration with the Minnesota DOT and Michigan Technological University, this study is working to meet three research objectives: 1) train WSDOT and industry personnel about carbon emissions measurement and reduction, 2) collect life cycle assessment data on WSDOT paving projects, and 3) enable WSDOT to include EPDs in project procurement processes and specifications. Integrating these into WSDOT standard practices will be a critical step in decreasing the carbon footprint of its transportation infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Principal Investigators:<br><a href=\"mailto:stmuench@uw.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steve Muench<\/a>, Civil and Environmental Engineering, UW<br>Kim Schofield, WSDOT<br>Curt Turgeon, Minnesota DOT<br>Zhanping You, Michigan Technological University<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Subcontractors:<br>Headlight Inc.<br>WAP Sustainability Consulting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sponsors:<br>FHWA<br>WSDOT<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WSDOT Technical Monitor: <a href=\"mailto:strausk@wsdot.wa.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Karen Strauss<\/a> <br>WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson<br>Scheduled completion: June 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2022 FHWA Climate Challenge included a call for state departments of transportation and other public sector stakeholders to explore the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental product declarations (EPDs) as a standard practice to inform more sustainable pavement material and design selection and to quantify the emissions and impacts of those practices. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/current-projects\/using-lca-to-reduce-embodied-carbon-in-pavement-infrastructure-at-wsdot\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Using LCA to Reduce Embodied Carbon in Pavement Infrastructure at WSDOT<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-projects","category-cp-pavements"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2611"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3439,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2611\/revisions\/3439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/trac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}