Environment : CHANGER - IRF Greenhouse gas Calculator
In
today's demanding world, no industry can afford to ignore its impact on
the environment and on climate change. As we move into the future,
better roads must be built by practitioners who are fully aware of the
impact of their activities and of the possibilities for reducing it.
The road infrastructure sector is taking on its responsibility. Willing
to help in this global endeavor, the International Road Federation has
designed a greenhouse gas calculator – CHANGER - specifically tailored
to road infrastructure projects.
Fully
compatible with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
guidelines and easy to be used, the tool allows public and private
entities to monitor and assess greenhouse gas emissions generated
during the different stages of the road construction process, thus
allowing more responsible choices.
By virtue of its extensive and varied membership – both in terms of geographical coverage and fields of specialisation – IRF has benefited from technical support from a wide range of technical partners throughout the development of the project. This has been particularly invaluable for ongoing review and validation of the modelling approach and databases, as well as for testing and comparison.
The
LAVOC (Traffic Facilities Laboratory) of the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - EPFL) has
analysed and validated both the quality and reliability of the
databases and the calculation procedures.
Investing in this environmentally-friendly tool now is not only wise
business sense, but a matter of responsibility towards society.
Article on CHANGER published on LeStrade magazine March 2010 (Italian)
Monitoring and Assessing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Road Construction Activities: The IRF GHG Calculator by Susanna Zammataro
