DEVON County Council says it is ahead of its ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030

This comes as the council announces its next phase in cutting carbon from Devon’s roads maintenance.

Phase one, announced last year, saw the council – one of the first in the country – develop a carbon calculator to identify the carbon emissions produced in every step of highway maintenance.

A spokesperson said: ‘From the materials used; the labour involved; the distance and the type of transport used to get the materials and engineers to site; the longevity of the materials used and how long the repairs will last – that’s some of the data, crunched by the carbon calculator, that identifies the carbon emissions for that specific highway project.

‘Knowing all this in advance and planning it in at the early design stage of a job - building a new road or structure say, or repairs to an existing road – puts the council in the best position to cut the anticipated amount of carbon generated by the project.

‘It’s already led to innovative changes in the way the council and its contractors carry out highway repairs in Devon, using different materials and techniques, and recycling and re-using material as close to site as possible, for example, with significant reductions in carbon emissions.

‘So, if phase one is about eliminating carbon emissions at the design stage, phase two, which is being introduced in the next few weeks, is about tracking the actual carbon emitted at construction or repair stage.

‘Contractors have worked with the council on designing this next phase, which will ask them to share their live data on completed projects.

‘Take for example a stretch of road that requires re-surfacing.

‘The council wants contractors to report back on the quantity of work they have carried out; the materials they’ve used, eg asphalt type - the amount of that material; how it got to site; what kind of fuel was used to get it to site; how far it’s travelled; the equipment needed on site, the fuel it uses and where it’s come from; the waste created and what happens to that waste.

‘The detail helps to build a carbon profile that tells the contractor and the council what the carbon emissions for that project have been.

Experts at the University of Exete’r are working with the council, and they’ve developed an algorithm to crunch the data and create a dashboard to visualise it in a consistent way for all highways projects.

‘It means that the council and their contractors learn what works best, and together they can continue to cut carbon from their highway works.’