CPATH ignored by gcc - gcc

Question

I am trying to set up the environment variables to add additional search paths for my gcc compilation. However, for some reason these are not working. What am I missing?
$ CPATH=/usr/local/boost/include
$ echo $CPATH
/usr/local/boost/include
$ cpp -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=cpp
Target: x86_64-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../src/configure -v --with-pkgversion='Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.4' --with-bugurl=file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-5/README.Bugs --enable-languages=c,ada,c++,java,go,d,fortran,objc,obj-c++ --prefix=/usr --program-suffix=-5 --enable-shared --enable-linker-build-id --libexecdir=/usr/lib --without-included-gettext --enable-threads=posix --libdir=/usr/lib --enable-nls --with-sysroot=/ --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-libstdcxx-debug --enable-libstdcxx-time=yes --with-default-libstdcxx-abi=new --enable-gnu-unique-object --disable-vtable-verify --enable-libmpx --enable-plugin --with-system-zlib --disable-browser-plugin --enable-java-awt=gtk --enable-gtk-cairo --with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-5-amd64/jre --enable-java-home --with-jvm-root-dir=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-5-amd64 --with-jvm-jar-dir=/usr/lib/jvm-exports/java-1.5.0-gcj-5-amd64 --with-arch-directory=amd64 --with-ecj-jar=/usr/share/java/eclipse-ecj.jar --enable-objc-gc --enable-multiarch --disable-werror --with-arch-32=i686 --with-abi=m64 --with-multilib-list=m32,m64,mx32 --enable-multilib --with-tune=generic --enable-checking=release --build=x86_64-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-linux-gnu --target=x86_64-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
gcc version 5.4.0 20160609 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.4)
COLLECT_GCC_OPTIONS='-E' '-v' '-mtune=generic' '-march=x86-64'
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/5/cc1 -E -quiet -v -imultiarch x86_64-linux-gnu - -mtune=generic -march=x86-64 -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Wformat-security
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/local/include/x86_64-linux-gnu"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/5/../../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/include"
#include "..." search starts here:
#include <...> search starts here:
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/5/include
/usr/local/include
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/5/include-fixed
/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu
/usr/include
End of search list.
As you can see, in the "#include search starts here:" the path specified via CPATH does not exist. I tried the same with C_INCLUDE_PATH and CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH.
Also, the problem appeared when actually trying to compile a cpp file using g++, but in the listing above I just use cpp -v for the sake of brevity.
The specified path does exist in the file system.
Any additional information you might need?