European National Road Authorities and Circular Economy: An Insight into Their Approaches

Sustainability

Ana Jimenez Del Barco Carrion¹  Gaetano Di Mino²  Konstantinos Mantalovas²  Davide Lo Presti²  Elisabeth Keijzer³  Tony Parry⁴  Björn Kalman⁵ 

[1] Department of Construction Engineering and Engineering Projects, University of Granada, 18003 Granada, Spain;Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy;Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands;Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre (NTEC), University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK;Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), 58330 Linkoping, Sweden;

关键词: circular economy;    asphalt pavements;    National Road Authorities;    circular procurement;    circular recommendations;    circular road maps;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su12177160

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The pavement engineering industry, having realized the significance of the impacts that it imposes on the environment through the production, construction and management of its products and assets, has been driven towards a more sustainable and circular way of operating. This has partly been through asphalt recycling, which is an area that many road authorities have prioritized. However, not all the National Road Authorities (NRAs) and/or sector stakeholders seem to be adequately familiar with the Circular Economy (CE) concept. This paper attempts to assist the transition of NRAs to a more circular way of doing business, by analyzing the current situation of CE within national/regional authorities and NRAs. To do so, a questionnaire was sent to different NRAs and an online search was conducted to identify the ways that NRAs communicate their CE practices. Findings indicate that, although the majority of the NRAs are familiar with CE as a concept, not many actions have been taken so far towards its holistic implementation. Finally, there is a significant lack of CE expertise and communication within these bodies.

【 授权许可】

Unknown