CH2M HILL, an industry leader in sustainability services for transportation, water, energy, and climate change, was recently selected by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to lead a team in the identification of the characteristics of a sustainable highway, and to develop tools, procedures and techniques that can be incorporated into a standard practice to make highways more sustainable.

In defining the statement of work for the project, the FHWA noted that principles of sustainability are used in many other building and construction industries to demonstrate commitments to environmental goals and cost savings.

However, these principles are not widely understood or used in transportation project development and implementation. In light of these gaps, FHWA has taken the lead to develop a sustainable highway initiative that will inform the actions of the state Departments of Transportation, metropolitan planning organizations and other transportation stakeholders.

CH2M HILL will be supported in this work by the University of Washington, the Texas Transportation Institute, High Street Consulting, WebKey and Pavia Systems. The fast-track project, which is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2010, includes the following tasks:

· Developing preliminary principles and criteria for sustainable highways

· Conducting peer exchanges with stakeholders from the highway industry to obtain input of strategies and criteria for sustainable highways

· Testing and refining the preliminary criteria and principles

· Developing model process, compendium of sustainable practices and self-evaluation tools for sustainable highways