UK Government announces £30m funding for innovative projects to decarbonise UK highways

Future roads could be built using asphalt made from grass cuttings and ‘carbon capturing’ cement, supported by £30 million government funding awarded to 7 innovative, net zero projects.

Seven projects spread across the UK, from Lanarkshire to Devon, have been awarded funding today through the Live Labs 2: Decarbonising Local Roads competition. The programme supports projects led by local highways authorities focused on tackling the long-term decarbonisation of highways infrastructure, such as streetlights, and transforming local authorities’ approach to decarbonising roads.

The winning projects include cutting carbon emissions from our streetlights to producing asphalt made from green waste like grass cuttings. Other projects plan to drive changes to the design, construction and maintenance of typical UK highway construction, as well as plans to develop a first-of-its-kind system approach to creating a net carbon negative model for green infrastructure delivery.

Roads Minister Richard Holden said: "The UK is a world leader in technology and innovation and we must use that strength to drive decarbonisation and the next generation of high tech jobs that go alongside it."

"We are supporting this vital agenda to help level-up through £30 million funding for ground-breaking projects and boosting regional connections to support growth."

The 7 successful local highways authorities and their partners will be provided funding, subject to due diligence, to develop, test, pilot and roll out new technologies to facilitate decarbonisation, including in supply chain emissions. The 7 successful bids are:

Live Labs 2 is designed to ensure innovations are shared across the whole of the UK and bidders were encouraged to create partnerships across the public and private sector, and academia. As such, the winning projects will be working together across 4 interconnected themes, including:

• a green carbon laboratory: examining the role that non-operational highways ‘green’ assets can play in providing a source of materials and fuels to decarbonise highway operations, for example, using biomass from green waste to create alternative fuels and asphalt additives
• a future lighting testbed: researching the future of lighting for local roads to determine what is needed in the future and how they can be further decarbonised
• a UK centre of excellence for materials: providing a centralised hub for research and innovation that would help test construction materials and their use
• corridor and place-based decarbonisation: working to create decarbonisation across specific, wider regions and corridors covering both urban and rural areas

Live Labs 2 is funded by the Department of Transport (DfT) and organised by The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT), which represents ‘directors of place’ who are responsible for providing day-to-day services, such as local highways, as well as strategic long-term delivery.

Find out more here.