IRF Circle of Excellence Webinar: Building Green and Resilient Roads for a Changing Climate
November 4 @ 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
About the webinar
The IRF Circle of Excellence webinar, set on 4 November, Tuesday, at 14:00 CET, offers a space for thematic exchange and peer learning. Anchored in the IRF’s role as a convening platform, this initiative supports ongoing dialogue around transformative projects and solutions shaping the future of road systems and mobility, building upon the momentum on the IRF 2025 Awards.
Building Green and Resilient Roads for a Changing Climate
Green roads that advance decarbonisation and resilience are at the heart of the global sustainability transition. Accounting for nearly 74% of transport emissions, the road sector remains the heaviest contributor to greenhouse gases worldwide.
While commitments to decarbonisation are expanding, emissions have steadily climbed by around 2% each year over the past decade. By 2023, they not only recovered from the pandemic slowdown but reached new highs of approximately 6.2 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent. These figures underscore the urgent need to accelerate the decarbonisation of road systems through clean technologies, renewable energy integration and data-informed infrastructure management.
While climate risks continue to intensify, efforts to make road infrastructure more resilient have struggled to keep up. The resulting damages have grown dramatically — with economic losses rising about sevenfold since the 1970s to an estimated USD 1.6 trillion by 2010. More than a quarter of the world’s road and railway infrastructure is already exposed to at least one natural hazard, threatening mobility, livelihoods and essential services. Building resilience in the road sector therefore requires more than physical strength; it calls for smarter systems, predictive data tools and sustainable operational models that enable rapid recovery and long-term reliability.
Alice Yiu
Moderator
Fabrice Breton
Matthew Bond
Subu Kamal
Sun Zhaoyun
Suresh Gurumurthy
With COP30 taking place in less than two months in Belém, Brazil and the launch of the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport (2026–2035) scheduled for 10 December 2025, this first IRF Circle of Excellence webinar brings together the global road community to explore how innovation and practical experience can advance this shared agenda. The Draft Implementation Plan of the Decade (circulated by UN DESA in October 2025) calls for “integrating resilience into transport planning, infrastructure and operations” and adopting a “holistic approach” that also strengthens institutional capacity, workforce skills and contingency systems.
It further highlights that “infrastructure choices can either lock in unsustainable pathways or lay the groundwork for sustainability and resilience,” urging governments and stakeholders to apply long-term planning, research and foresight to break with unsustainable trends and meet the needs of a rapidly changing world. These calls to action align closely with IRF’s mission to champion roads that are green, safe and resilient — roads that enable climate-smart mobility while protecting communities and economies from growing risks.
This session features award-winning initiatives that embody these principles in practice. From China’s spatiotemporal big data system and India’s climate-informed digital road asset management platform to Greece’s solar-powered motorway and Australia’s bushfire resilience framework, the projects demonstrate how innovation, digitalisation and foresight are transforming the road sector’s response to climate and sustainability challenges. Complementing these systemic approaches, India’s Devihalli Hassan Tollway illustrates how sustainability can be embedded at the project level through water conservation, renewable energy deployment and electric-vehicle integration.
The Circle of Excellence webinars will be conducted quarterly throughout the year and asking people to stay tuned for more.
IRF Circle of Excellence
Each IRF Circle of Excellence series will spotlight award-winning projects, provide a moderated space for technical and peer dialogue, offer IRF members a platform to pitch aligned initiatives and serve as a vehicle to connect flagship IRF activities and amplify collective learnings.
In 2025, more than 100 applicants from around the world submitted entries showcasing advances across 12 categories.
The announcement of the IRF 2025 Awards winners took place alongside the International Symposium “Navigating the Future of Traffic Management” (29 June – 03 July 2025), held in Athens, Greece.