Transportation projects are a resource intensive activity that cause significant negative impacts on the environment. As environmental initiatives are being put in place, the industries related to transportation have been working towards more sustainable practices in the past decade. In order to measure how sustainable these engineering projects are as a whole, the development of rating systems with the use of indicators to assess and reward points based on various sustainable best practices has been established. The aim of this research is to establish weighting of different indicators related to materials and resources most commonly used by various transportation rating systems based on their contribution to sustainability. The indicators selected: recycled materials, reuse of materials, local materials, and long life design were evaluated for their benefits and trade-offs using a life-cycle approach with specific scenario conditions that match each indicator. A systematic methodology for this evaluation was proposed using a multi-attribute criteria approach for assessing the indicators by three criteria: performance, environment, and costs. The criteria were them used to weigh points typically granted by indicators for their contribution towards sustainable development. Results showed that engineering state of practices can significantly affect the contribution and therefore the weighting of these points. As a result, the benefits of higher accomplishment may not contribute on a linear increasing scale of points used for awarding indicators found in most rating systems. Moreover, the implementation of a point cap becomes crucial during weighting to ensure all indicators are fairly represented.

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