Environmental Essentials

The Road Forward

By: Richard Willis

Twenty-one people. Twenty-one people from different walks of life. Twenty-one people with different areas of expertise and passions. Twenty-one people who put hours of time into developing a better understanding of where we are as an industry. And twenty-one people who created a vision: a vision for net-zero carbon emissions for the asphalt paving industry.

The Climate Stewardship Task Force developed this vision partially because the Biden Administration rejoined the Paris Climate Accords and announced the goal for the entire country to be carbon neutral by 2050. As active members of our communities and citizens of our country, we in the asphalt industry have tracked how the asphalt industry needs to understand its role in helping the United States achieve this lofty goal. But there are other reasons to focus on this such as business efficiency, recruiting the next generation of workers, and being a better neighbour for your community.

The National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) envisions a world of sustainable commerce and communities connected by net-zero carbon emission asphalt pavements. Over the course of 2022 and beyond, NAPA is going to focus on a mission to engage, educate, and empower the U.S. asphalt community to produce and construct net-zero carbon emission asphalt pavements with four distinct goals in mind.

Industry Goal 1: Achieve net-zero carbon emissions during asphalt production and construction by 2050. This means that the industry will not contribute any emissions from its own operations in producing and paving asphalt mixtures. The industry is going to have to identify ways to reduce energy demands at the asphalt plant and improve efficiencies during operations. However, one of our key sources of emissions is through burner operations, and we can improve.

Industry Goal 2: Partner with customers to reduce emissions through pavement quality, durability, longevity, and efficiency standards by 2050. This can seem challenging because so much of this is out of our control; however, we can do a better job advocating for policies and standards which will allow us to continue to reduce the emissions associated with the use and maintenance of our asphalt pavements through tools such as perpetual pavements and more.

Industry Goal 3: Develop a net zero materials supply chain by 2050. We need to be engaging with our binder and aggregate suppliers, additive manufacturers and more to ensure we understand not only the environmental impacts associated with the production of their product, but how it impacts performance. This goal allows us to advocate for better use of reclaimed asphalt pavement in our mixtures and look at new and innovative technologies which could allow us to further reduce our carbon footprint.

Industry Goal 4: Transition to electricity from renewable energy providers in support of net-zero carbon electricity generation by 2050, and reduce electrical intensities. Most of this goal is out of our hands. You may only have one electricity provider and you may not have the land to build your own solar farm, but we can advocate for cleaner electricity from our providers. They too may not be able to reach total zero, but they can choose to be net zero in their business operations.

If you made it to this point, you may be thinking, “Richard, this is a lot!” And I would respond by saying, “It sure is!” And that is why we need the entire industry to walk down the road forward with us. It will make us better companies and a better industry and show our stakeholders and future workers where our priorities really lie. For more information, please visit www.asphaltpavement.org/forward.

Richard Willis is Vice President, Engineering, Research, & Technology, for the National Asphalt Pavement Association.