Switzerland’s climate strategy sets a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with several cities adopting even more ambitious timelines. Achieving these goals in road infrastructure requires scalable alternatives to conventional binders, given that oil-based bitumen contributes significantly to the carbon footprint of asphalt. This paper presents lessons learned from a Swiss pilot project using a two-component instant bio-based bitumen as a substitute for bitumen currently in use. The commercially available product combines maltene donors extracted from polymerized cashew nutshell liquid with asphaltene donors from natural hydrocarbon resins, - making it completely independent from the petroleum industry. Laboratory testing showed that the bio-based binder met the specification limits in standard bitumen characterization tests. Asphalt mixtures containing up to 50% reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) demonstrated comparable or better performance. A cradle-to-gate environmental assessment indicated that replacing one ton of conventional bitumen with the instant bio-based bitumen can achieve a net reduction of up to 2 t CO₂ equivalent including biogenic carbon sequestration. These results confirm the potential of bio-based binders to contribute to Switzerland’s climate strategy while maintaining technical and operational feasibility. This Swiss pilot project demonstrated that such bio-based materials represent a technically viable and environmentally impactful solution for sustainable pavement construction.