Roadways win product of the year at the edie Sustainability Leaders Awards for cold asphalt solution!
Roadways has been named winner in the Product of the Year category at the prestigious edie Sustainability Leaders Awards, recognising the company’s cold bitumen emulsion-based asphalt, a lower-carbon, standards-compliant solution designed for use across the UK’s road network.
The material is produced using 100% reclaimed asphalt aggregates bound with bitumen emulsion, eliminating the need to heat aggregates during manufacture. It is used as a binder and base layer, offering a direct replacement for traditional AC20 and AC32 asphalt under the operative Specification for Highway Works.
By eliminating the need to heat aggregates during production, the solution maintains the same structural intent as conventional asphalt while significantly reducing energy demand, carbon emissions and operational risk. The approach also reduces production cost and programme risk compared with traditional hot asphalt production.
While cold asphalt has existed within specifications for decades, its adoption at scale across the Strategic Road Network has required extensive engineering development, collaboration and persistence. Roadways worked closely with industry partners to refine the material and demonstrate that cold-applied solutions can meet the rigorous standards required for major infrastructure delivery.
The recognition at the edie Sustainability Leaders Awards highlights the collective effort behind bringing the solution to market. Roadways collaborated with partners including: National Highways, WSP, Jacobs, Surrey Highway Laboratories and Nynas to test, validate and deliver the material for use on the Strategic Road Network.
“This award recognises what the industry can achieve when existing standards are applied more intelligently”, said James Bailey, CEO at Roadways. “Cold asphalt has been permitted within the Specification for Highway Works for decades, but bringing it into routine use on the Strategic Road Network required persistence, collaboration and engineering rigour.”
Across the UK, producing traditional hot and warm asphalt demands substantial fuel and high temperatures during manufacturing. By substituting even part of the binder and base layers with cold asphalt, the industry can significantly lower energy use, reduce emissions and cut costs in road construction and maintenance.
Roadways believes solutions such as cold asphalt represent practical, standards-compliant progress for infrastructure delivery, demonstrating how existing specifications can be applied more intelligently to achieve more sustainable outcomes.
The award also carries special significance as it comes during Roadways’ 60th year, marking six decades of innovation in the highways sector. For 60 years, Roadways has focused on improving infrastructure by applying engineering expertise and established standards in smarter ways – supporting the communities it serves while delivering roads that are safer, more efficient and more sustainable.
About Roadways
Roadways is a highways and civil engineering contractor with Tier 1 principal contractor and full self-delivery capability, operating across the South East.
We deliver highways maintenance, resurfacing, civil engineering and road recycling schemes for National Highways, local authorities, Tier 1 contractors and private clients. Roadways designs, produces and installs its own materials — including Cold bitumen emulsion based asphalt and Hydraulically Bound Materials (HBM / CBGM) — giving direct control over quality, programme certainty and commercial risk.
By applying the operative Specification for Highway Works more intelligently, Roadways delivers lower-risk, specification-compliant infrastructure without departures or experimental methods.