Seven companies will receive funding of between £15,000 and £30,000 to develop trial proposals in collaboration with National Highways and its primary contractors.
In phase two, further funding up to £80,000 will be available to support a favoured few to trial their solutions on the roads.
The seven companies who have made it through the first stage are:
- Xeroc, London: recycling old concrete into new concrete, returning each component into its original form with as little contamination as possible
- Low Carbon Materials Limited, Seaham: carbon negative aggregate for use in carbon neutral asphalt
- PRG (Scotland), Hamilton: a low-carbon bitumen alternative
- Circular11, Ferndown: low carbon fencing materials from recycled plastic
- Asset International Structures (a division of Hill & Smith Infrastructure), Cwmbran: plastic bridge beams embedded with fibre optics to monitor structural performance
- HausBots, Birmingham: a climbing robot that inspects structures
- Loop Infinity, London: a whole life carbon measurement tool.
National Highways roads development director Joanna White said: ”We want to speed up innovation within our sector and adopt new solutions. The innovation accelerator will help take potential solutions and drive them through the research and testing phases.”
National Highways project manager Melissa Giusti added: “In 2021 National Highways set out its net zero plan which includes a commitment to net zero emissions from construction and maintenance activity by 2040. Material decarbonisation, building less, efficiently using materials, getting things right first time, making their assets last longer and driving change through whole life carbon decision-making are areas that National Highways is going to focus on.”
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
