By: Amy Pastor, PE, CxA, LEED Fellow, ENV SP, Vice President – Sustainability | EXP
Addressing climate change in the construction industry requires resourcefulness and innovative solutions. The construction industry is responsible for 39% of greenhouse gas emissions, and sustainability experts are working to reduce this number through new initiatives. In partnership with public and private sectors, we’re finding ways to reclaim waste as a resource.
Toronto Area Road Builders Association (TARBA) recently launched its Recycled Crushed Aggregate (RCA) Advocacy Campaign. This campaign is a partnership between TARBA and some of Ontario’s most influential infrastructure and engineering organizations, including Concrete Ontario, Good Roads, Greater Toronto Sewer and Watermain Construction Association, Heavy Civil Association of Toronto, Ontario Road Builders Association, Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario, Ontario Sand, Stone and Gravel Association and the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. This initiative is an opportunity to push for more resourceful methods in construction. Our sustainability team, alongside EXP concrete specialists and geotechnical engineers, worked with TARBA to author reports and conduct studies to confirm that the RCA quality meets, and in some cases exceeds, requirements of the municipal and provincial specifications.
Credit: TARBA
The Ministry of Ontario and the City of Toronto have already started to showcase the effects of policy aligning with innovation. Through educating stakeholders on the advantages of RCA, impactful partnerships between innovative infrastructure organizations and policymakers can lead to continued advancement in RCA and cross-sector collaboration to accelerate adoption and innovation. If governments were mandating a minimum of 20% RCA in infrastructure construction projects, local governments could save more than $260 million and reduce enough greenhouse gas emissions to account for removing 15 million cars from the road annually. In Ontario, RCA has already replaced new concrete and asphalt on projects like Pearson International Airport, Toronto Area transit projects and house-enabling infrastructure in subdivisions.
By embracing RCA, we’re encouraging environmental stewardship, fiscal responsibility and engineering excellence. Alongside TARBA, we’re committed to promoting sustainable construction practices and creating sustainable solutions for infrastructure.
Learn more about Sustainability at EXP, and contact me to learn about how to use Recycled Crushed Aggregate on your next project.