Resource efficiency: the transport sector’s untapped opportunity to cut cost and carbon

A transport roadmap for lower costs, less carbon and greater long-term value

Insights from a new report on resource efficiency for the Department for Transport gives the transport sector a clearer picture of how it can cut cost and carbon at scale. Mott MacDonald project director Annette Smith explains what must change now to realise the full potential resource efficiency offers by 2032.

The UK transport sector faces both financial and environmental cost challenges that are becoming impossible to ignore. Delivering the infrastructure that connects communities, supports economic growth and enables future mobility must continue, but it must also reduce carbon emissions, control costs and improve long-term resilience. The good news is that one of the most powerful solutions is already available in the form of resource efficiency, if it can be embedded as business as usual.

How to achieve resource efficiency was the question at the heart of a recent study Mott MacDonald undertook for the Department for Transport (DfT). Drawing on literature reviews, stakeholder interviews and cross-sector workshops, the work explored how resource efficiency can be embedded consistently across major transport infrastructure projects and, crucially, what prevents the sector from doing so today.

Resource efficiency sounds deceptively simple. In practice, it means minimising the use of materials, energy and resources throughout the lifecycle of an asset while maintaining safety, performance and value for money. The evidence gathered through this study suggests that doing so could unlock substantial cost and carbon savings, particularly when decisions are made early enough to influence project outcomes.

Systemic barriers

One of the strongest findings was that the transport sector does not suffer from a lack of technical solutions. Instead, it struggles with a collection of systemic barriers that repeatedly prevent good ideas from becoming standard practice. Across the evidence base, four themes emerged consistently: inconsistent requirements, fragmented data, poorly distributed innovation risk and a failure to take whole-life decisions early enough.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that resource efficiency is won or lost long before construction begins. Material consumption, embodied carbon and whole-life costs are largely determined during strategic definition, option selection and early design, yet these are often the stages where resource efficiency receives the least attention. When opportunities are considered later, project teams have fewer options, greater constraints and less freedom to innovate.

The ambition outlined in the report is therefore much broader than introducing a handful of new standards or technologies. It is about creating the conditions that allow resource efficiency to become business-as-usual across transport infrastructure delivery. The proposed implementation pathway sets out a journey between now and 2032 that aligns policy, governance, capability development and innovation into a coordinated programme of change.

Central to this ambition is the creation of a common language. Stakeholders repeatedly highlighted the need for shared definitions, standardised metrics, consistent reporting and trusted evidence that can be applied across arm’s length bodies, delivery organisations and supply chains. Without these foundations, organisations will continue measuring success differently and industry will struggle to build confidence in resource-efficient approaches.

The report also recognises that innovation cannot flourish if risk remains concentrated in the wrong places. Suppliers and contractors are often expected to absorb the financial and assurance burdens associated with new materials and techniques, even when wider public benefits are clear. A more equitable approach to innovation risk will be essential if resource-efficient solutions are to move from isolated pilots into mainstream delivery.

Essential next steps

To deliver changes by 2032, the sector must focus on building the foundations now. This means agreeing common definitions, establishing clear reporting expectations, understanding existing data gaps and creating consensus across DfT and its arm’s length bodies about what success looks like. Without these basics, later interventions will struggle to gain momentum.

Over the next year, organisations should be investing in capability, strengthening collaboration and embedding whole-life thinking into business cases, governance processes and project development activities. Resource efficiency needs to become an early-stage conversation rather than a late-stage optimisation exercise.

By 2030, the sector should have operational knowledge-sharing mechanisms, consistent measurement approaches, mature training programmes and a trusted data environment capable of supporting evidence-based decisions. At that point, resource efficiency can begin to scale because it will be supported by confidence, comparability and shared learning.

By 2032, the ambition is for resource-efficient delivery to be genuinely embedded into standard practice. Successful innovations should be routinely adopted, secondary material markets functioning more effectively and whole-life planning integrated into every major transport project. Resource efficiency should no longer be viewed as an environmental initiative but as a core component of good infrastructure delivery.

What success looks like

The prize is significant: if successful, the sector can reduce costs, lower embodied carbon, improve asset performance and build a more resilient transport network while creating stronger evidence for future investment decisions. People benefit through better value for taxpayers’ money and infrastructure that performs more effectively across its lifetime, while the planet benefits through lower resource consumption and reduced emissions.

The alternative is equally clear: without action, the transport sector risks continuing a cycle of fragmented data, duplicated effort, missed innovation opportunities and avoidable carbon emissions, while locking higher costs into future generations of infrastructure. The opportunity exists today but the question is whether the sector is prepared to change and make the early decisions needed to realise true resource efficiency.

Read the Department of Transport's resource efficiency report.