Sustainability

You may wonder why we consider sustainability in the pavement preservation business at all. We think the reasons are quite obvious: Worldwide the population is increasing and the amount of natural resources like crude oil, aggregates or iron ore is limited.

It’s just a fact — the road construction sector produces an extremely high level of greenhouse gas while consuming a growing amount of natural resources. From the use of fossil fuel energy used in mining, transportation, and paving to the emissions coming from paving vehicles, the topic of sustainability should be a major concern to everyone in the business of roads.

Pavement preservation methods, including slurry and micro surfacing, are a greener alternative to traditional reactive pavement maintenance and repair methods. These processes use fewer natural resources, consume less energy and reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions.  The Pavement Preservation Recycling Alliance provides a sustainability calculator so you can easily compare costs and greenhouse gas emissions between two treatments.  Follow the above link to their site to compare!

The BASF Corporation conducted an eco-efficiency analysis (EEA) of asphalt pavement technologies that explains the economic and environmental impacts of micro surfacing and mill and fill with hot mix asphalt. Micro surfacing was proven to be more environmentally friendly. Learn more here.

Huge challenges await the road construction sector including less expensive, yet better production, construction and, of course, maintenance. Raw materials are already becoming more scarce over time while countries’ environmental laws are getting stricter regarding air pollution and noise disturbances. The road construction sector needs to face the challenge of sustainability head on.

Bergkamp is a leader, and is proud of our reputation for a viable, sustainable process of pavement preservation. Bergkamp has dedicated contractor and government sales and support teams designed to better meet your individual sustainability needs.