Geosynthetics impact on Environment, a European experience

The scope of this paper is to highlight the challenges and the opportunities represented by the use of geosynthetics in a civil engineering approach, when the environmental issues have a priority.
The problems to front are a big opportunity for geosynthetics, both in the perspective of adaptation to the changing environmental conditions, with a particular focus on the global warming phenomenon, and in the perspective of the possible contribution to the mitigation of the undesired changes.
The ambition of the European Institutions to build a comprehensive normative system does not always fit with the quick answers required by the market, so the national authorities of each country are moving forward independently.
The scale of the problem and the limited availability of data do not allow yet to quantify the possible contribution of geosynthetics to the improvement of the environmental impact of the construction works.
Quantitative analysis are needed to sustain the intuitive benefits and for matching the only apparent contradiction between circular economy and durability of the products.