Reducing Embodied Carbon in Roads: New Zealand’s Visual Guide

Road construction and maintenance carry an embodied carbon cost: emissions from producing, transporting, and installing materials, driven largely by high-emissions materials such as cement and asphalt, and set early in design and delivery decisions. Lower-carbon options exist, but evidence is often spread across technical research and hard for project teams to use.

This session will present the Carbon Reduction Visual Guide, published in May 2025 by the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) in collaboration with Beca. The guide consolidates technical research, industry knowledge, and recent New Zealand case studies into ten initiative cards covering decarbonization opportunities for roading assets and high-emissions materials, each assessed for feasibility, commercial viability, and environmental impact. Speakers from NZTA and Beca will discuss the purpose and background of the work, the methodology used to develop the guide, and specific initiatives and case studies.

For Southeast Asia, where road networks are growing quickly and many countries have set net-zero targets, the guide shows how to build lower-carbon choices into standards, specifications, and everyday design decisions.

The session is part of ADB's Green Roads Webinar Series, which examines the nature-positive benefits of green roads and highlights their cross-cutting contributions to decarbonization, climate resilience, water management, biodiversity, disaster risk reduction, and inclusive growth.