Assessment of current foreign green infrastructure tools and the development of a green infrastructure system for road projects in Malta

Abstract

Sustainability is a term that has recently grown in importance. There is no one specific definition for sustainability, but multiple ones that describe sustainability in different ways. Sustainability should be addressed throughout all the phases of the project such as the planning phase, the design phase as well as the construction phase. In construction and road projects sustainability is now recognised as a key indicator. This new approach is important as it evaluates sustainability throughout projects. In order to evaluate sustainability in road projects, sustainable road rating systems were developed. For this type of evaluation, a number of construction projects in Malta have already applied a rating system. On the other hand, there is no rating tool that may be applied to road infrastructure projects in Malta as yet. The purpose of this study was to analyse the best sustainable road rating system that can be used as a good baseline for the development of a similar system for the Maltese Islands. Another reason for this study was to develop a local green road infrastructure system. This study includes a comprehensive analysis of the systems and the different credits used to make them effective sustainable road rating systems. The four sustainable road rating systems that were selected for this study included Greenroads rating tool, GreenLITES (Leadership In Transportation and Environmental Sustainability) rating tool, Envision rating tool and I-LAST (Illinois Livable and Sustainable Transportation) rating tool. A local green road infrastructure system was developed to serve as guidelines in the design and construction of sustainable road projects in Malta. The dissertation includes recommendations and further research regarding the local green road infrastructure system developed for Malta. Sustainable techniques that can be used to increase benefits in road projects and the method used to identify the credits that are considered suitable for local road projects are presented in the dissertation. The green road infrastructure system developed here will help to achieve sustainability goals.