A review on green economy and development of green roads and highways using carbon neutral materials

• Main Authors: Attahiru, Yusuf Babangida, A. Aziz, Md. Maniruzzaman, Kassim, Khairul Anuar, Shahid, Shamsuddin, Wan Abu Bakar, Wan Azelee, N. Sashruddin, Thanwa Filza, Abdul Rahman, Farahiyah, Ahamed, Mohd. Imran
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2019
• Subjects: TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/88569/; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.11.036
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

An estimated 2.2 billion people in 108 countries are expected to survive on multidimensional poverty and almost 1.5 billion out of 2.2 billion people survived on or less than US$1.25 a day. This review highlights the concept of a green economy that promotes an attractive green revolution to the present economic crises affecting developing countries for sustainable economic and environmental improvement. Green roads and highways can reduce the emissions released from fossil fuels and greenhouse gases if constructed with carbon neutral materials. Thus, carbon neutral materials used for the construction of green roads and highways can absorb temperature and excess emissions released by the vehicles because of their neutralities. This is because of the massive quantity of natural aggregates used during construction. Problems associated with green roads and highways made from carbon neutral materials are incompatibles with land use, geology, topography, substructure, landscape, rainfall, and other physical features. Therefore, physical features, geology, landscape, transportation, and development substructures were measured as crucial problems for national development. Most of the approaches used in this study are based on the context of a green economy and the development of green roads and highways. The USA possesses the highest GDP per capita of US$52,194.90 and Bangladesh possesses the lowest GDP per capita of US$1029.60. This implies that the GDP for USA is 50.70 times higher than that of Bangladesh. The study highlights positive solutions to the above global challenges. It can be concluded that global challenges will be addressed through the concept of green revolutions.