This paper studies vehicle routing problems from a distribution center (DC) to urban retailers under joint economic and environmental considerations. A VRP is formulated with three main components: (i) embeds road-condition effects via an International Roughness Index (IRI)–based fuel multiplier at the arc level, (ii) models load-dependent emissions by interpolating between empty and full factors (EP/EF), and (iii) enforces an explicit system-level CO2 cap. The operating-cost objective aggregates fuel, maintenance, monetised CO2, labor, insurance, and a per-departure loading fee; emissions are accrued only on used arcs by multiplying the EP/EF term by the routing decision. Two operational regimes are considered: a fixed vehicle type across tours and a policy that allows re-selecting the vehicle upon return to DC and exhaustively evaluate 656 feasible configurations (of 1,040) that respect the “same road out and back” rule for direct DC–store legs. All reported solutions satisfy capacity, demand, flow conservation, and the CO2 cap. Results show that: (i) ignoring road roughness systematically underestimates operating cost and yields suboptimal routing decisions, (ii) embedding both distance and roughness into the cost function enables realistic. The modeling ingredients and validation workflow transfer directly to larger cases solvable in CPLEX, offering a practical template for urban networks where road roughness materially influences fuel use, vehicle wear, and emissions.