Skip to main content

Creating the world’s first sustainable highway

The Mission Zero Corridor Project in West Georgia, US, believes that it is possible to have a ‘green highway’. To this end, it has appointed breakthrough innovation consultancy Innovia Technology to help create a ‘travel corridor’ and rethink the purpose and function of this infrastructure to generate social, environmental and economic value. The project aims to be a fitting legacy for the late Ray C. Anderson, ‘the greenest CEO and founder of Interface, the global manufacturer of modular carpet. A
August 10, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
The Mission Zero Corridor Project in West Georgia, US, believes that it is possible to have a ‘green highway’. To this end, it has appointed breakthrough innovation consultancy Innovia Technology to help create a ‘travel corridor’ and rethink the purpose and function of this infrastructure to generate social, environmental and economic value.
 
The project aims to be a fitting legacy for the late Ray C. Anderson, ‘the greenest CEO and founder of Interface, the global manufacturer of modular carpet.
 
Anderson developed the Mission Zero framework to eliminate Interface’s environmental impact while maintaining productivity and still turning a profit. The aim was a promise to “eliminate any negative impacts the company may have on the environment by 2020” and the framework created a blueprint for business sustainability.
 
As a memorial to Anderson, the Ray C Anderson Foundation is using a 16-mile stretch of the Interstate 85 in Troup County, West Georgia, as a living experiment to demonstrate that it is possible to build a ‘regenerative, restorative and sustainable highway’.
 
To get the project started the Foundation and Interface funded a vision study through The Georgia Conservancy’s Blueprints for Successful Communities program. Using Interface’s Mission Zero framework as a roadmap, graduate students in the School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with studio instruction from a team of architects from Perkins+Will in Atlanta, explored how a highway could be a tool of change.
 
The outcome was an inspirational report that identifies a broad range of potential technologies and opportunities.
 
Innovia will provide a creative exploration of new opportunities, evaluate the technologies for viability and scalability and propose a strategy to bring the vision to life by attracting the engagement and support of key stakeholders.

Related Content

  • Transportation app challenge at World Congress
    August 11, 2014
    The Youth Connection Showcase at the ITS World Congress Detroit is presenting the Road Code challenge – a code-a-thon competition to inspire creative app development around transportation. College students, entrepreneurs, and tech start-ups, will be encouraged to think big and think creative; mobile connectivity, or safety, or convenience. Teams of coders will descend on Grand Circus, an inspirational learning facility in the heart of downtown Detroit on Friday, Sept. 5, 2014 at 7.00pm and kick off 24 hour
  • Substantial savings from smarter street lighting
    February 25, 2015
    As authorities strive to reduce expenditure and carbon emissions, Colin Sowman looks at some of the smart ways of managing street lighting while containing costs and maintaining safety. Street lighting can account for 40% of an authority’s energy consumption. So, faced with the need to reduce outgoings, some authorities are looking for smart ways of managing street lighting or even turning off swathes of street lights in the small hours. Back in 2008 the E-street Initiative report concluded that authorities
  • Integrated corridor management 'to enhance travel efficiency'
    August 29, 2012
    New systems of software are coming together to form the technological backbone of a project that will apply practically to one corridor in Dallas, but influence travel across a wider area. Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is the lead agency for an extensive Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) project in Dallas, covering an area stretching north east of downtown Dallas, 20 miles long by two miles wide. The corridor is defined loosely by the US-75 freeway and DART’s light rail ‘red line’. These are the theor
  • Yutraffic Studio: revolutionising traffic management
    April 12, 2024
    Yunex Traffic has unveiled its latest innovation: Yutraffic Studio. This advanced, cloud-based traffic management platform promises to transform the way cities handle transportation challenges