Civil engineering

The civil engineering sector concentrates on motorways, railways, civil structures and infrastructure products. The carbon footprint of these projects is completely different to that of residential and non-residential buildings. The COâ‚‚ emissions of railways and motorways are mainly found on the supply side and during the building phase and less in the usage phase. The realisation of products in this sector requires the use of a relatively lot of COâ‚‚-intensive raw materials, such as asphalt concrete, steel and copper. The consumption of these products is low, as road and railway traffic are not included in the calculation model used to determine the carbon footprint.

The attention given to COâ‚‚ reduction is considerably lower than in the residential and non-residential construction sector. This probably also explains the limited number of methods and tools in the area of COâ‚‚ reduction in this sector. Moreover, the tools that are available, including DuboCalc, VPL, URBIS and LEMON, do not target or target to a lesser degree the COâ‚‚ emissions in the procurement and construction phases. It is expected that the central government's sustainable procurement policy, and in particular the policies of the Directorate General of Public Works and Water Management and Prorail, will put COâ‚‚ reduction higher on the agenda in the coming years.

The COâ‚‚ emissions during the procurement phase will also drop in the coming years on the one hand driven by the government's procurement policy and on the other by supplier innovations. As a result, the relationships in the groundwork, road and hydraulic engineering chain will change and the relative share and the importance of COâ‚‚ emissions in the construction phase will rise.