Justin Chang Chee Kit

The role of standards in shaping sustainable innovation adoption in the UK road infrastructure sector

Standards are often cited as levers for supporting the sustainability transition, yet the innovation-enabling role of quality and safety standards in regulated sectors is less explored. This dissertation investigates how technical standards in the UK road infrastructure sector shape the adoption and diffusion of sustainable innovation. An inductive, qualitative approach is adopted, drawing primarily from seven semi-structured interviews with experienced stakeholders across the value chain, such as standards managers, innovation managers, technical lead and researchers to explore their experiences with adopting sustainable innovation and how standards interact with that process in practice. This is supported by a light scoping review of relevant UK road infrastructure standards to corroborate their insights.

Findings show that standards in this sector operate mainly as an assurance infrastructure: reducing technical and performance uncertainty rather than directly catalysing adoption. Sustainable innovations have to meet the same stringent criteria, but uncertainty about longterm technical and sustainability performance justifies caution. Uptake of innovation is shaped by safety considerations, liability for long-term risks, innovation and trial costs for standardisation, and misaligned incentives that do not sufficient reward or prioritise sustainability objectives. Firms may thus favour incremental innovations instead. While there have been efforts to incorporate whole-life considerations into technical guidance, these are limited by those structural constraints in practice.

While necessary, standards alone are insufficient. To convert assurance into adoption, this dissertation recommends the following for future validation: (1) elevate construction and maintenance emissions to key performance indicator (KPI) status in the next Road Investment Strategy; (2) explore designing contracts to be risk-compatible with whole-life value (3) channel innovations into standards via a pre-commercial pathway with clear acceptance thresholds; and (4) strengthen capability and sustainability evidence through academia–industry partnerships and sharing of trial data.