Towards Circularity in Roads Infrastructure: A Critical Review

Roads are one of the key components to ensure modern societies’ ‘normal’ functioning. They are critical infrastructures that maintain interconnectivity among communities and promote economic growth and improvement for sustainable development. Therefore, roads play a crucial part in achieving sustainable cities and communities aligned with the 11th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). As reported within this chapter, road projects account for high CO2 emissions with significant energy and material consumption throughout their lifecycle. The implementation of circular economy (CE) practices regarding resource consumption in the different stages of road projects have been proposed by several researchers as a strategy to address the depletion of natural resources. This chapter intends to review current strategies together with enablers and barriers to implementing circularity in road infrastructure projects to reduce the depletion of natural resources. The main results show that by addressing enablers and barriers, it is possible to improve the level of CE implementation in practice, leading to more sustainable energy-saving solutions and efficient use of resources to help stakeholders in the assessment and selection of the most effective solutions for road infrastructure projects.