Green assessment of Thailand’s highway infrastructure: A Green Growth Index approach

Infrastructure investment is considered to be one of the crucial factors for promoting economic growth. In developing countries such as Thailand, government spending on economic infrastructure is critically important. However, promoting economic growth through infrastructure spending is not without consequences. For instance, a significant amount of carbon emissions was released by the construction and operation of roads in recent years. The aim of this paper is therefore to present a new model of green growth assessment for highway infrastructure that combines economic index with environmental performance of the project. Unlike its contemporary methods, the proposed Green Growth Index (GGI) accounts for the fact that the actual performance of a road project, both economic and environmental ones, may be different from what had been predicted. Accordingly, it may be of use to periodically evaluate the performance of the project in terms of its economic benefits and environmental impacts. A hypothetical road project is first used as a numerical example to illustrate how the proposed method can be applied. Then, a real highway project called Kanchanaphisek Road is then employed as a case study project presented in this paper.

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