Goal: Take urgent action to tackle climate change and its impacts

This goal has two targets:

  • Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related hazards and natural disasters
  • Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.

Climate change adaptation

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency’ performance agreement with the Ministry of Transport and Communications for 2020–2023 imposes on FTIA the obligation to monitor the energy efficiency of the transport system and the attraction of sustainable transport, including climate change adaptation measures. In practical transport infrastructure management work, climate resilience and the prevention of the risks and harm caused by climate change are increasingly emphasised.

Climate resilience is a crosscutting aspect of the entire life cycle of transport infrastructure management from land use and design to the construction, maintenance and use of transport infrastructure. In the context of climate resilience, it is important to identify relevant phenomena and the changes predicted to take place in them, such as temperature fluctuations, rainfall and storms, and their impact mechanisms on both transport infrastructure assets and operability. This means that the necessary adaptation and preparedness measures can be anticipated and included in plans.

Achievements in 2023

Year 2023 saw the launch of efforts to achieve the objectives and carry out the measures of the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan (KISS2030), which was completed in 2022. Among other things, climate change adaptation measures were promoted in the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency's operational risk assessment, preparedness and contingency planning, and management reviews. In addition, a draft report on the vulnerability of the transport network, in which climate change was examined as one of the vulnerabilities, was completed for FTIA’s internal use.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency produced a report on climate change adaptation, in which FTIA's guidelines for the design, construction and maintenance of the transport routes and their structures was considered, and the needs to develop the adaptation guidelines were set out.

Other concrete measures during the year included:

  • Drainage situation of the road network and the structure of gravel roads were improved to prevent further damage caused by surface frost heave
  • Management of information on sites liable to flood was developed
  • Anticipation and communication concerning flood situations was continued
  • More detailed instructions and monitoring of temperatures on track bed improvement sites were issued.

Together with the Finnish Meteorological Institute, a report on Climate change scenarios in transport infrastructure maintenance was produced, which presents longterm scenarios for weather phenomena significant for transport infrastructure management. 

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency is actively involved in European and international climate change adaptation cooperation with road and rail sector organisations (including CEDR, UIC, PRIME). Their development projects have examined the impacts of extreme weather events (including rainstorms, high temperatures) on road and rail infrastructure and developed methods for carrying out climate change adaptation measures.

 

Climate policy promotion

Saaristomaisema, jossa on useita vihreitä saaria, tyyni sininen meri ja vene, joka jättää veden pinnalle valkoisen jäljen.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency has several roles in promoting Finland’s national climate policy. FTIA produces information on the impacts of transport infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance as well as reconciling transport and land use on climate change mitigation and adaptation. This information is used for the preparation of national climate strategies and plans together with other central government bodies. The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency is also tasked to achieve national climate change targets and implement policies associated with the stateowned transport infrastructure networks. 

Key national strategies and the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency’s role in them

Finland's transport policy is guided by the National Transport System Plan (Transport 12) approved by the Government in April 2021, which identifies climate change mitigation as a key objective. The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency implements the plan for the part of stateowned transport networks and takes climate objectives into account in this work. Key instruments for this include transport infrastructure management programmes (investment programme, planning programme and basic plan for managing the stateowned transport infrastructure network), assessment of their impacts, and promoting the attainment of sustainable transport and climate change mitigation objectives. The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency participates in updating the Transport 12 plan.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency also implements the policies of the Medium-term Climate Change Plan (KAISU) completed in 2022 on the circular economy and emission reduction measures in transport, machinery and public procurement. The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency plays an important role in reducing climate emissions from infrastructure construction and procurement. It participates in drawing up national policies relevant to these areas and produces information for Climate Change Plan updates. 
 

Achievements in 2023

 

Assessment of low-carbon solutions for infrastructure construction was strengthened

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency’s key goals include promoting climate impact assessment and low-carbon, lifecycle sustainable solutions in infrastructure design, construction and maintenance as well as in procurements and asset management relating to them. Emission calculations are drawn up to produce information on emissions from infrastructure construction and to identify significant potential for reducing emissions.  

Commensurate and comparable calculation of emissions from the implementation of transport infrastructure projects lays the foundation for developing the activities and comparing different design and construction options. In October 2023, the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency published an assessment method for low-carbon infrastructure construction, the aim of which is to harmonise the assessment of climate impacts generated by infrastructure construction projects. Conducting an assessment following these guidelines is a requirement in all procurements of design work made by the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and ELY Centres in which projects are assessed following the project evaluation guidelines. The method for assessing low-carbon infrastructure construction will play a key part in the steering of low-carbon infrastructure construction in future projects. As a rule, the assessment covers an operational period of 50 years.

In 2023, the piloting of the assessment method for low-carbon construction and the emissions database for infrastructure construction was expanded to cover the general plan stage. The results of the pilots have been used to develop the assessment method, uniform reporting, process description and emission database. Taking the results into account in project evaluation makes it possible to draw on project emissions data in the decisionmaking process. 

The emission calculation module embedded in the Ihku calculation service, which performs cost and emission calculations at both project and building component level, is a key tool for assessing low-carbon construction in the design phase. The emission factors used in Ihku emission calculations are based on data in the emissions database for infrastructure construction. The maintenance and development of the database for infrastructure construction (co2data.fi/infra) was continued together with the Finnish Environment Institute. In 2023, the focus of this development work was on information needs identified in connection with pilot calculations. Around 1,500 to 2,500 users accessed the emissions database for infrastructure construction on a monthly basis through the service in 2023. Through the Ihku calculation service, the data will be used in all design projects of the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency.

 

NordLCA+ project

In 2021–2023, the NordLCA+ project (LCA, life cycle assessment) created a common Nordic knowledge base and situational picture of carbon footprint assessment and good practices in infrastructure projects. 

In 2023, the project completed a study titled ‘Improving LCA calculations - Update of the State of Art document and workshops on practical examples and best practices’, which included an updated overview of carbon footprint calculation, tools, knowledge base and good practices. A stakeholder event was additionally organised, which focused on such topics as the interfaces of carbon footprint calculation and data modelling.

A study that compares Nordic calculation tools and methods in a few cases was underway in 2023. The project stepped up cooperation on developing emission calculation on the basis of an earlier report on data models and carbon footprint calculation. The aim is to strengthen this cooperation further in future cooperation projects at the Nordic level.
 

Pavement EPD calculation (Environmental Product Declaration)

Työntekijät tekevät asfalttia kesäisessä säässä. Taustalla näkyy peltoja, puita, ja pilvinen taivas.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency has developed lowemission pavement material procurements over a long period and, together with the asphalt sector, identified a need to find ways of guiding paving contracts towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The identified methods include environmental declarations and environmental impact calculations of asphalt products as well as a common tool for producing them for this sector. In 2022, separate calculation rules (AsfalttiPCR) were prepared for the Finnish paving industry to guide emission calculation. Emission calculation in contracts was piloted for the first time in 2023. 

In 2024, the calculation tool will be updated with the filters and methods of AsfalttiPCR, after which more detailed information on emissions can be obtained. The piloting of emission calculations in paving contracts will be expanded in 2024 to factor in even more environmental impacts.

The future aim will be obtaining information on emissions from the pavement sector and different paving methods as well as on their development. Contractors can themselves decide and demonstrate how they can achieve the end result with the lowest possible emissions. The essential point in efforts to reduce emissions is, however, focusing on the phases that result in the largest emissions.

Currently, the most significant emissions in paving work are generated in the asphalt manufacturing phase. In addition, contract mechanisms are being developed that will encourage reducing emissions, with monitoring based on the calculation tool.