Meeting increasingly ambitious carbon regulations in the construction industry is particularly
challenging for earthmoving operations due to the extensive use of heavy-duty diesel equipment. Better planning of
operations and balancing of competing demands linked to environmental concerns, costs, and duration is needed.
However, existing approaches (theoretical and practical) rarely address all of these demands simultaneously,
and are often limited to parts of the process, such as earth allocation methods or equipment allocation methods
based on practitioners’ past experience or goals. Thus, this study proposes a method that can integrate multiple
planning techniques to maximize mitigation of project impacts cost-effectively, including the noted approaches
together with others developed to facilitate effective decision-making. The model is adapted for planners and
contractors to optimize mass flows and allocate earthmoving equipment configurations with respect to tradeoffs
between duration, cost, CO2 emissions, and energy use. Three equipment allocation approaches are proposed and
demonstrated in a case study. A rule-based approach that allocates equipment configurations according to hauling
distances provided the best-performing approach in terms of costs, CO2 emissions, energy use and simplicity
(which facilitates practical application at construction sites). The study also indicates that trucks are major
contributors to earthmoving operations’ costs and environmental impacts.
The Enlightenment of Foreign Initial Carbon Emission Quota Allocation Methods to China
