Driving the way forward for greener roads

Did you know that construction industry contributes 40% of the overall Co2 emissions globally? To put that into context, transport accounts for 30% of Co2 emissions globally. A statistic that James Bailey found very alarming, and James knew that innovation was urgently needed to shake up the construction industry. 

James began his own forward-thinking company Roadways, with the mission to combat the high amount of carbon used for concrete. We interviewed James about Roadways and how being innovative has grown his business and will help to change the industry – for good.

How would you describe your business and why did you start it?

We are Roadways - an asphalt surfacing specialist and producer of low carbon concrete. Asphalt sustainability is key to our business, and because construction contributes to so much of the co2 globally, as a company operating in the sector, I don't see how you can't have sustainability at the top of your agenda. At Roadways, we use digital technology and other electronics to make sure that the roads are compacted and built so they will last for the next 20 years. We are also innovating in our business practices employing a more diverse workforce than you would typically see in the construction industry. 50% of our office staff are women, for example, I think this really brings a lot to our business.

Have you had an innovation “lightbulb” moment?

The most tangible kind of evidence of problem-solving and a “lightbulb moment” for me is what I call ‘swivel chair innovation.’ I work in Plus X Brighton and share an area with a fellow BRITE member, Dave Locke. Dave literally sits behind me, and one day I swivelled my chair around to talk to Dave about one of the things I needed to do with our concrete business.

We couldn't find anyone who could blend low carbon cement for us. We needed to build our own cement blending facility, one of the only ones in the South East, and Dave is a mechanical engineer. Dave said, “I'll come to your place, take some measurements, and I'll build you the full CAD model and we can use that to get prices, specify what we want, and then you can place the orders and we can make that happen”.

Swivel chair Dave was there within a few days, he built the CAD models, we sent that to the suppliers, they gave us the price, we approved the budget, the equipment is on order, and later this spring, we will be installing cement blending equipment. This was a powerful collaboration and because of it, Roadways will be one of the few places or only place in the South East blending low carbon cement. We will be saving 4.8 million car kilometres of co2 every year, just with the Roadways small concrete business alone. Now we’ve got the blending plant, we can potentially sell that to other people and these Co2 savings could increase by 10, 20, 100 times.

Now that is teamwork. You mentioned Plus X and the BRITE project, could you tell us a bit more?

We joined the BRITE project at Plus X Brighton, a project to help ambitious businesses grow. We have joined the Access to Expertise programme, where businesses like us can access experts from the University of Brighton to help with a new or existing project.

In our case, we're a medium-sized business, and have a very small laboratory that we use to do research and development. We have a graduate chemist that works for us, but we don't have a team of experts that can help us to develop and test these new materials. We have been able to work with experts from the University of Brighton to understand how much recycled aggregate we can safely put into our fresh concrete mix without affecting the strength, so we can make those environmental improvements. The programme, Access to Expertise, has helped us to get University resources and expertise that we could never afford to have in-house. 

Being at Plus X Brighton is a great opportunity to gain support from other entrepreneurs and other businesses that are doing similar things. You also benefit from experts that come in to the space to share their knowledge. Everybody you meet here at Plus X Brighton has some connection with what you’re trying to achieve with your business. Whether it’s something more indirect for example, there's a company working on a wellbeing app to aid teams or whether it's something much more direct, like the work we have been doing with Dave Locke, around mechanical design to bring some of our concepts to reality. Whoever you speak to at Plus X, there is some kind of collaboration or some added value that’s possible.

So, what does the road ahead look like for Roadways?

The future for Roadways is all about continuing to innovate and develop lots of sustainable low carbon smart products and solutions. It is quite hard, especially in the construction industry to find clients who put a real value on sustainability. The majority of clients are still sending out price only tenders and not considering social value or any of the other sustainability initiatives that we are building.

So, the future for us looks like finding more clients that have the same values as us, and growing in Brighton in particular. We are tendering for the Brighton highways contract this year and we really hope that it’s going to be an opportunity for the council here to not spend more money, but to direct their budget in a more efficient way that will deliver sustainable and social benefits, at the same time as getting the roads fixed!

Interested in learning more about the Access To Expertise programme and how to benefit from up to £7K worth of free expertise? Join our free taster on the 25 March or the 22 April 2022, held in Plus X Brighton. Or speak to us about other programmes on the BRITE project. To find out more and book your slot, click here.

Plus X Innovation Hubs and the University of Brighton have teamed up to deliver a unique range of support so whatever your innovation challenge, we can help you succeed. BRITE members occupy space at Plus X Brighton, which has seven floors of flexible work space, collaborative meeting rooms, specialist innovation workshops for prototyping and state of the art media suites. The BRITE project is receiving up to £5m of funding from the European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk