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Part of the ADEPT Live Labs 2 : decarbonising local roads programme, a three year £30million UK-wide initiative funded by the Department for Transport that aims to decarbonise the local highway network.
Why now?
Our world is facing a climate emergency, threatening our shared future and causing significant impacts on our collective quality of life and the environment. At the Centre, we are striving to shift the dial towards net zero by targeting road materials, which contribute to 40% of the total carbon emissions of the highways sector.
As local authorities declare climate emergencies and net zero targets, innovative materials capable of lowering the whole-life carbon of our roads and assets have never been more crucial. The Centre aims to create a trusted carbon menu, offering local authorities and suppliers alike a platform for sharing knowledge, lessons learned and clear methods for evaluating and adopting leading innovations.
Learn moreWelcome to our
Decarbonisation Roadmap
01Identifying material innovation
As one of the key parts of our programme, we are scanning the UK and global markets for leading materials that can contribute to the decarbonisation of our highways and local roads.
Submit your innovation
02Trialling on live networks
Once we have identified and sifted our innovations, we will be live trialling on roads in North Lanarkshire and the West Midlands to gain confidence to adopt and scale low-carbon materials.
Read more about the Materials Testing Programme
03Evaluating carbon and technical performance
With support from industry and academic experts, we will be developing a trusted process for evaluating the carbon, technical and scalability of material innovations.
Learn more about our team of experts
04Scaling and sharing across the sector
With our online knowledge bank and knowledge sharing activities, we will share and scale the leading low-carbon material innovations.
Read more about our programme outputsThe Materials Testing Programme
The materials testing programme sits at the heart of our Centre of Excellence, as we reach into all corners of the local roads sector to identify, evaluate, trial and evaluate cutting-edge material innovations capable of reducing carbon emissions.
Submit your innovation
Working with our established highway maintenance stakeholders we've identified the problems blocking progress towards decarbonisation of local roads. This project addresses each of them to build a regional, national, and potentially global powerhouse for decarbonisation of highways. This isn't just a bid that will last three years, this is a movement to decarbonise highways throughout the UK and beyond.
Mark Corbin | Director of Network Resilience, Transport for West Midlands
The University of Nottingham is committed to supporting the aims of the Centre of Excellence for materials live labs. Our systematic approach of extensively trialling, rigorously evaluating, and disseminating our results has the potential to significantly speed up the adoption of the best innovative materials that can help local authorities reach their net-zero targets.
Professor Gordon Airey | Director of NTEC, University of Nottingham
The West Midlands history and heritage in transport is well known and we are now continuing that pioneering spirit to embed transport innovations and drive behaviour change to reduce emissions, improve air quality, and stimulate the green economy. This programme marries the two in the spirit of innovation and collaboration which are at the heart of everything we do.
Andy Street | Mayor of West Midlands
This project has the potential to make a real difference in reducing carbon from highways management, breaking down silos and making innovation more accessible for all. I believe that by investing in this project, we can not only benefit the environment but also boost our local supply chains and contribute to a more sustainable future for all.
Lucy Fell | Strategic Roads Director, Colas
Reducing carbon and improving sustainability is viewed as a critical success factor for the organisation and we are delighted to have the opportunity to be a part of this programme. We strongly support the overall objectives of the Live Labs 2 mission and commit to active sharing of the outcomes, failures, and successes of the programme.
Andy Denman | Highways Sector Director, Amey
The transport sector accounts for a large portion of the emissions and here in North Lanarkshire we want to be at the forefront of innovation and developing solutions to this crisis. I believe we have assembled an excellent network here and across Scotland which will enable the radical shifts required. This is a fantastic opportunity to be a driver for change and make North Lanarkshire a Centre of Excellence to support the whole industry.
Councillor Kenny Stevenson | Councillor at North Lanarkshire Council