A new report from the UK’s Adept Live Labs 2: Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) was published yesterday (April 23, 2025), outlining recommendations for changes to help decarbonise local road networks across the UK.
The report is part of Live Labs 2, a three-year £30 million programme funded by the Department for Transport. that focuses on local highway networks, which comprise 430,000 km of roads (97% of all UK roads) maintained by more than 200 Local Highway Authorities.
Recommendations include reducing competitive bidding for funds, developing a strategic spatial plan for UK local highways, better communication about funding availability, creating a local highways expertise hub, incorporating decarbonisation requirements into contracts, and encouraging risk-taking and experimentation.
It also suggests extended funding periods rather than short-term grants, support for public-private financial partnerships, promoting green materials, providing targeted training, offering government subsidies for low carbon discounts in tenders, building a network of innovators, and developing an impact modelling tool.
“This vital work on organisational behaviour explores some of the upstream and downstream change that is necessary to embed asset based decarbonisation across all activities in the local roads industry and continues the conversation around whether we can afford not to do anything,” says Neil Gibson, chair of the Live Labs 2 Commissioning Board.
According to the report, UK local roads maintenance and development costs over £4bn annually and generates an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, representing 1.4% of the UK’s domestic transport carbon footprint.
“The findings from the report are currently being reviewed by the Commissioning Board, Adept and the Department for Transport to determine the next steps in how shifts in behaviour can be monitored,” says Gibson. “Everyone invested in the future of sustainable infrastructure is invited to join us at the upcoming online mini Expo, where we will share further insights from this report and demonstrate how action can accelerate our journey towards decarbonised local roads.”
The report is available on the Adept Live Labs 2 website. An online mini Expo is scheduled for April 30th, where further insights from the report will be shared.
