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128 5. Guidelines for development of sustainability management plans for transportation agencies. Help agencies strategically align their internal practices, standards and specifications, procurement and contracting practices, and project delivery methods with their long-term economic and environmental goals; and assist agencies communicate with industry and community partners, to develop collaborative systems that can further sustainability of transportation infrastructure as a whole. 11 POTENTIAL IMPLEMENTATION DIRECTIONS The following are recommended implementation efforts: ï· Online delivery of the Guidebook. Convert the Guidebook to an online resource like WebMD, HowStuffWorks, LifeHacker, Wolfram, or, in the highway industry, Pavement Interactive. This could be done through original development or including Guidebook content on already-popular sites like Pinterest or Diigo. ï· Guidelines for incorporating sustainability into highway construction contracts. Provide guidance, including archetype language, on how to incorporate sustainability into highway construction contracts. This could be a catalog of approaches to contracting and contract language organized by contract type. ï· Guidelines for development of sustainability management plans for transportation agencies. Provide guidance to develop and a set of prototype sustainability management plans that can be used for highway construction projects. ï· Sustainable highway construction training. Develop and deliver online training on the contents of the Guidebook. Online training could take the form of a self-guided course, webinar, or combination. ï· Feedback to sustainability rating systems. Provide written feedback to major U.S. sustainability rating systems (Greenroads, INVEST, Envision) concerning (1) how they address highway construction, (2) SCPs identified in this project that the rating systems include and omit, and (3) suggestions for inclusion of the projectâs findings. ï· Methods and tools to quantify, evaluate and document sustainability efforts. Develop methods and tools to quantify, evaluate, and document sustainability efforts. Currently, it takes much time and effort to quantify, evaluate, and document the impact of many sustainability efforts. While methods exist to quantify metrics like greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, and life-cycle cost (e.g., life-cycle assessment, life-cycle cost analysis) they must be performed by subject matter experts in a one-off manner and are often not repeatable at a reasonable price point. Existing industry professionals are generally not trained in these methods, and the few readily available estimating tools use inconsistent methods. The best subject to start with is life-cycle assessment (LCA).
