Recent trends in sustainability assessment of “green concrete”

In the last years, the use of wastes and/or recycled materials in the design of mix conglomerates lets to define the “green concrete”. It can be described as a composite material in which high levels of cement can be replaced by recyclable industrial and agricultural wastes. As a consequence, this mixed material is produced by reducing energy consumption, environmental impact and sustainable utilization of energy. In this view, literature shows that many recent studies focused on the investigation of the green concrete, highlighting the importance of developing environmental impact analyses able to confirm the sustainability of this material. Then, in order to evaluate the environmental performance, life cycle assessment, appears a key methodology. Therefore, the aim of this work is to analyze and review recent studies focusing on the quantification of the environmental impacts of “green concrete” in order to identify the critical aspects of the life cycle assessment analysis.