ABSTRACT
Roadway transportation systems contribute significantly to global Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Although there has been significant progress in identifying how to reduce embedded GHG in construction, we do not know how efficient our decisions are in creating sustainable welfare. To achieve this knowledge, it is necessary to investigate how structures contribute to economic growth, life safety, resilience and sustainability, relative to their associated embedded GHG emissions. In the present paper a framework is provided on how the GHG efficiency of different strategies for roadway bridge design and integrity management may be modelled and quantified. The application of the framework is illustrated on an example considering typical design decisions for ordinary concrete highway bridges and it is shown that optimal decision in this respect have the potential to reduce embedded GHG emissions by a factor of two.
