7.

0 Sustainability
Sustainability is an extremely important aspect of construction. The act of preserving resources while
making societal advancements is necessary to maintain the environment and the quality of life in
Vancouver, as encouraged by the City of Vancouvers Greenest City 2020 Action Plan.

7.1 Greenest City 2020 Action Plan

Currently, the City of Vancouver plans to become the greenest city in the world by the year 2020. Their
plan includes many categories, three of them being: a greener economy, a lighter footprint, and a greener
transportation system. Throughout the process of designing the overpass, the action plan has played a
large role in advocating sustainability; this includes the consideration of production resources,
maintenance resources, and conformity with the Envision rating system.
7.1.1 Production Resources
The most prevalent material in the Queen Elizabeth Pedestrian and Cyclist Overpass is concrete. Aside
from concretes high compressibility strength, the material is also environmentally friendly during its
production. When looking at production energy levels, concrete scores at approximately 1.4 gigajoules
per ton (NRMCA, 2012). Looking at the Figure __ below, in comparison to other common building
materials concrete is extremely energy efficient. Additionally, throughout concretes lifetime through the
process of carbonation, concrete is able to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air (NRMCA,
2012).

Figure 23: Energy of Production for Common Building Materials

Sourced from: http://nrmca.org/sustainability/CONCRETE%20CO2%20FACT%20SHEET%20FEB%202012.pdf

7.1.2 Maintenance Resources

The consideration of the overpasses life cycle is particularly important when analyzing the long-term
environmental impacts the overpass will have. Aside from concretes low energy usage in production,
another strategy that will be implemented to conserve energy is the usage of solar powered lights. As
mentioned before, these lights will both appear on one side of each staircase and line the main walkway
of the overpass. By replacing the previous five streetlamps with these solar lights, there will be a
considerable reduction in energy use- leading to both a positive environmental and economic impact.
Furthermore, current analyses show the overpasss steel railings will only have to be recoated every 20
years, and the overpass itself is expected to have a 75-year lifespan.

7.2 Envision Rating System

The Envision Rating System is a sustainability assessment tool introduced by the Institute for Sustainable
Infrastructure. This system evaluates infrastructure in five general categories: Quality of Life, Leadership,
Resource Allocation, Natural World, and Climate and Risk. Considering these categories, the overpass
exceeds expectations due to the previously mentioned benefits of concrete, the overpasss usage of solar
powered lights, and the overpasss impressive life span. Moreover, during the design stages of the
overpass, community impact was taken into account, allowing for a planned cohesion of the overpasss
aesthetic design and the communitys theme- simplistic, and antique.

References for this section

NRMCA. (2012). Concrete CO2 Fact Sheet. (NRMCA Publication No. 2PCO2). Retrieved November 29,
2015 from http://nrmca.org/sustainability/CONCRETE%20CO2%20FACT%20SHEET%20FEB
%202012.pdf