VAA Virginia Asphalt Fall/Winter 2021

DEFINING ASPHALT’S FUTURE Resilience is a term we’re hearing used more frequently in committee meetings, infrastructure bill discussions and amongst our peers in the industry and agency realms. But what is resilience? And is this just another way to say sustainability? Hint: It isn’t. Resilience and sustainability are two separate things, but they are intrinsically linked. Sustainability is established upon what is known as the triple bottom line: economy, social and environmental health. In Policy Statement 418, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) states that sustainability is a set of conditions that “all of society has the capacity and opportunity to maintain and improve its quality of life indef- initely, without degrading the quantity, quality or the availability of economic, environmental and social resources” (ASCE, 2021). The asphalt industry has been at the forefront of many sustainable practices, such as using recycled materials in mixtures, reducing emissions through warm mix technology, managing and filtering stormwater with porous pavements and implementing technologies such as cold central plant recycling. Is there more we can do? Abso- lutely, but we’ll speak to that later in this article. Resilience, as defined by FHWA Order 5520, is “the ability to antic- ipate, prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to and recover rapidly from disruptions” (FHWA, 2014). So, in essence, resilience is our ability to bounce back. To make a sports analogy, the Philadelphia Eagles showed resilience after their star quarterback, Carson Wentz, went down with a torn ACL in 2018. At that point, my apparent celebrity doppelganger, Nick Foles, stepped in and ultimately led the Eagles to their first Super Bowl Champion- ship. Note: As a life-long Carolina Panthers fan, I was pulling for the Eagles due to my disdain for their opponent (and because I kept get- ting texts from people who were convinced Foles and I were related). Another example that may hit closer to home is the COVID-19 pan- demic. The world ground to a halt, but slowly and surely, we found ways to adapt by wearing masks, social distancing and Zooming so we could get back to work. Academics like myself taught online and managed to keep labs cleaner than ever. Meanwhile, agencies and the paving industry found ways to safely keep building our critical infra- structure, in some cases ahead of schedule. While in no way do I want to make light of this catastrophic tragedy; I do want to point out that we, as people, as road builders and as researchers, are resilient. So, where does resilience fit into the context of sustainability? As I noted before, they are related. One could argue that to be sus- tainable would require one also to be resilient, especially since we consider performance as it relates to environmental, social and economic factors. But, our methods of adapting our pavements can be resilient but not sustainable, and vice versa. This Venn diagram (figure 1) shows sustainable practices or attri- butes, resilient practices or attributes and sustainable + resilient practices or attributes. For example, using recycled materials may be sustainable, but it isn’t always a resilient solution. Likewise, using novel materials that help strengthen the pavement system to 11 VAASPHALT.ORG continues on page 12 △