About CHANGER
In today’s demanding world, no industry can afford to ignore its impact on the environment and on climate change. As we move into the future, better roads must be built by practitioners who are fully aware of the ecological repercussions of their activities, and of the growing potential for enhancing positive while reducing negative impacts. Keen to contribute dynamically to this global endeavour, International Road Federation has designed a greenhouse gas calculator – CHANGER - specifically tailored to road infrastructure projects.
Fully compatible with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines and easy to be used, the tool allows public and private entities to monitor and assess greenhouse gas emissions generated during the different stages of the road construction process, thus allowing more responsible choices.
By virtue of its extensive and varied membership – both in terms of geographical coverage and fields of specialisation – IRF has benefited from technical support from a wide range of technical partners throughout the development of the project. This has been particularly invaluable for ongoing review and validation of the modelling approach and databases, as well as for testing and comparison.
The LAVOC (Traffic Facilities Laboratory) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne - EPFL) has analysed and validated both the quality and reliability of the databases and the calculation procedures. Excerpts from the validation report can be downloaded here.
CHANGER has been conceived as an evolving tool, subject to ongoing review and development so that it ultimately covers every phase and aspect of road construction. Already, work is underway on complementing the existing pre-construction and pavement modules with a new module devoted to maintenance activities. Similarly, the databases will be regularly updated to reflect the very latest science as well as cutting-edge research on techniques, materials and equipment.
CHANGER in the Press
June 2012: Measuring the carbon footprint of road construction using CHANGER - Yue Huanga, Bachar Hakim and Susanna Zammataro
The software key to sustainable road - World Highways Sustainability for road infrastructure - November 2010
Time for a change - World Highways Software for Road Infrastructure - November 2010
Article on CHANGER - LeStrade magazine - March 2010 (Italian)
Monitoring and Assessing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Road Construction Activities: The IRF GHG Calculator - Susanna Zammataro
About International Road Federation
The International Road Federation (IRF) is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organisation with the mission to encourage and promote development and maintenance of better, safer and more sustainable roads and road networks. Working together with its members and associates, the IRF promotes social and economic benefits that flow from well-planned and environmentally sound road transport networks. It helps put in place technological solutions and management practices that provide maximum economic and social returns from national road investments.
The IRF has a major role to play in all aspects of road policy and development worldwide.
- For governments and financial institutions, the IRF provides a wide base of expertise for planning road development strategy and policy.
- For its members, the IRF is a business network, a link to external institutions and agencies, such as the United Nations and the European Union, and a business card of introduction to government officials and decision makers.
- For the community of road professionals, the IRF is a source of support and information for national road associations, advocacy groups, companies and institutions dedicated to the development of road infrastructure.
Through the International Road Educational Foundation the IRF awards grants to graduate engineers and other transportation professionals from around the world in support of full-time academic training. With this the IRF actively supports the future generations who will build the road networks.
With a wide network across over 90 countries on six continents, the IRF believes that it can make a difference by providing best practices and expert advice to today’s multi-faceted world of transport.