International - GEObuild Special International Symposium Geosynthetics and Sustainability

The rise in global temperatures requires a strong reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Geosynthetics can enhance sustainability in civil and hydraulic engineering by significantly reducing CO₂ emissions (32-89%) and energy use (up to 85%) compared to traditional materials. They also reduce the need for transporting heavy materials like sand and gravel. The EU aims to reduce emissions by 35% by 2035 and achieve climate neutrality by 2050, with the Netherlands targeting a 55% reduction by 2035. The symposium on Geosynthetics and Sustainability in Delft this year, organized by the NGO and IGS, aims to facilitate knowledge transfer on geosynthetics and sustainability. Top experts from around the world presented state-of-the-art research and applications, highlighting the sustainability benefits of geosynthetics.

The opportunities to achieve sustainability goals by making more extensive use of geosynthetics in roadways are massive. This paper aims to illustrate the sustainability benefits of adopting geosynthetics in roadway design. This is accomplished by quantifying the carbon footprint for six roadway projects, each involving at least two alternative designs: One with and the other without geosynthetics. The analyses indicate that the design alternatives involving geosynthetics always proved more sustainable than the conventional (without geosynthetics) alternatives, resulting in savings in the total carbon footprint that ranged from 16.3 to 44.44 tCO₂e per lane-km

Using geosynthetics, structures can be built more sustainably and economically than with traditional methods using mineral aggregate, clay, steel or concrete. Geosynthetics can replace or significantly reduce the use of these primary building materials. They also increase the service life of structures, like canals, levees or other hydraulic engineering applications. Compared to traditional construction methods, building with geosynthetics means in most cases a lower total energy demand, substantial reduction of CO₂ emissions and cost savings. Various applications and geosynthetic functions as well as the sustainability benefits are summarised in this article. It will be illustrated how responsible and sustainable solutions can be obtained by using geosynthetics. More important, the positive environmental impact of these solutions compared with traditional building methods are described. The contributions of geosynthetics to the construction of resilient structures as the big future challenge for climate change adaptation are outlined

The rise in global temperature and consequent climate change require a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the use of raw materials and fossil fuels. Sustainability, both in the production of geosynthetics and in their use are important.

The major advantage of using geosynthetics compared to traditional building materials is the reduction in CO₂ emissions because less primary raw materials such as concrete, sand, gravel are used. The reduction in CO₂-emissions varies from 30 – 89%. In addition, there is also a large reduction of the required energy compared to the traditional construction methods. This can be up to 85% depending on the chosen technology.

Construction of a sustainable landfill includes reduction in carbon emission and energy consumption during construction as well as reduction in long-term emissions during operation, closure and aftercare, and avoiding any harm to future generations. Geosynthetics can provide sustainable alternative solutions to traditional construction methods which leads to reduction in using natural resources, construction costs, and transportation. Reducing transportation will not only reduce the related CO₂ emission (due to the fuel consumption), but also reduce the microplastic production, as vehicle tyres are the main source of producing microplastics (Boucher and Friot, 2017). Geosynthetics can also increase the long-term performance and durability of the leachate and gas collection systems. Landfills should not be built based on the cost only but consider currently available best practices for protecting future generations too.