Mr Brahm Dutt former secretary ministry of roads and Highways while releasing the report in India said that “The road construction industry should develop innovative and eco friendly materials as well use recovered and recycled materials to further green the transport infrastructure and reduce the per capita carbon footprints in the country.”

Mr Dutt said “Developing countries including India has to construct a huge network of roads in next 10 to 20 years coming years to reduce the travel time and distance for transporting people and products and other material from place to place. However, for each mile of these new but traditionally constructed roads,thousands of tons of materials such as aggregate stone,concrete,asphalt and steel are needed, let alone all of the diesel fuel required to power the construction equipment and to transport materials to and from the project site. This not only eats up precious natural resources but emit tones of pollution.”

Mr Dutt said that “ There is great need develop green highways and roads with less damaging way by recovering and recycling existing in situ materials and utilising specially engineered binders to produce effective stabilised building materials that enable existing waste streams like fly ash in the road construction. Now is the time to embrace a new way to design, plan, build and maintain road infrastructure, consistent with green road building practices.”

Mr KK Kapila chairman of International Road Federation speaking on the occasion “International Road Federation is taking action and leading the way to meet the calls for a greener transport system, the IRF Policy Statement on the Environment places in perspective the crucial contribution that need to be made to through safe and sustainable road infrastructure resolve to be at the vanguard of efforts to further improve the environmental performance of the road sector.”

Mr Kapila added that “The major highlights of the IRF policy are Safeguard the environment to the maximum extent possible,Mitigate any adverse effects through pro-active consideration of environmental issues at every stage of planning and implementation,Manage and use resources efficiently, encourage and provide incentives for ongoing innovation, so as to continually promote better environmental performance. IRF believes, however, that,if widely adopted and wisely applied, these recommendations will prove that economic development and protection of the environment need not be irreconcilable goals; and that viable green road infrastructure is today a reality.”

He said that “In keeping with IRF’s overall approach characterised by initiatives such as the CHANGER greenhouse gas calculator software the Policy Statement is intended as a catalyst to raise awareness, promote immediate practical action,demonstrate the inherent ‘triple bottom line’ benefits and most of all, inspire further innovation throughout the sector.”