The UK government has announced £30 million ($41 million) in funding for seven innovative, net-zero road projects across the country, from Lanarkshire to Devon. The projects were selected through the Live Labs 2: Decarbonising Local Roads competition, which supports initiatives led by local highways authorities focused on decarbonizing highway infrastructure such as streetlights, and transforming local authorities' approach to decarbonizing roads.
Roads Minister Richard Holden said, "The UK is a world leader in technology and innovation and we must use that strength to drive decarbonization and the next generation of high-tech jobs that go alongside it." He added that the government is committed to creating good, well-paid jobs through innovation and investment across the UK as the country accelerates its road to net zero.
The winning projects include cutting carbon emissions from streetlights and producing asphalt made from green waste such as grass cuttings. Other projects aim to drive changes to the design, construction, and maintenance of typical UK highway construction, as well as developing a first-of-its-kind system approach to creating a net-carbon negative model for green infrastructure delivery.
The seven successful local highways authorities and their partners will receive funding, subject to due diligence, to develop, test, pilot and roll out new technologies to facilitate decarbonization, including in supply chain emissions. The seven successful bids are:
- Highways CO2llaboration Centre for materials decarbonization, Transport for West Midlands: supporting upskilling and developing a team in the West Midlands to decarbonize highways via two initiatives, including a ‘Highways CO2llaboration Centre’, and demonstrator sites showcasing and monitoring innovative decarbonized highway materials
- UK Centre of Excellence for Material Decarbonization in Local Roads, North Lanarkshire Council: creating a centre that will develop a materials testing program identifying and deploying the latest tech for road construction, in addition to testing and deploying recycled materials from other industries to build roads
- A net carbon-negative model for green infrastructure management, South Gloucestershire Council and West Sussex County Council: aims to develop a first-of-its-kind approach to creating a net carbon-negative model for building and delivering green infrastructure, for example recycling biomass from green waste
- A382 Carbon Negative Project, Devon County Council: aims to drive changes to the design, construction and maintenance in typical aspects of highway construction to reduce carbon emissions, and to build a new link road including walking and cycling options
- Ecosystem of Things, Liverpool City Council: aims to introduce an ‘Ecosystem of Things’, exploring a scalable and transferable approach to understanding various systems (including design, public spaces, materials/process technology, recycling infrastructure, and the legal, contractual and procurement processes) at city level to embed and adopt decarbonization initiatives
- Decarbonizing street lighting, East Riding of Yorkshire Council: plans to work on increasing efficiency for low carbon lighting to make sure they can still be clearly seen by drivers and to create a framework for an alternative manual for highway lighting, signing, and road marking
- Net Zero Corridors, Wessex Partnership: will pioneer net-zero roads that are built without creating more carbon emissions overall in Somerset, Cornwall, and Hampshire in nine ‘net zero corridors’ linking rural and urban areas
Live Labs 2 is designed to ensure innovations are shared across the whole of the UK, and bidders were encouraged to create partnerships across different regions. The government hopes that the projects will not only reduce carbon emissions but also create jobs and support local economies.
Photo by Red Zeppelin on Unsplash
