[sustran] Sustainable Mobility Report

eric.britton at ecoplan.org eric.britton at ecoplan.org
Wed Jul 7 19:28:19 JST 2004


Toward Sustainable Mobility 

Reprinted from Innovation Briefs, July/August 2004

Four years ago, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development,
a loose coalition of 170 international companies drawn from 35
countries, launched an ambitious new project to investigate "pathways to
sustainable mobility." The 12 sponsoring member companies read like a
Who's Who in the world of energy and automotive enterprises. They
include BP, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan,
Michelin, Norsk Hydro, Renault, Shell, Toyota and Volkswagen. "It is our
collective view that the mobility sector will not be healthy over the
long term unless mobility is made sustainable," the consortium members
declared in a joint statement. Since the publication of its initial
MIT-authored report, "Mobility 2001: World Mobility at the End of the
Twentieth Century," in October 2001, (see, "Can Mobility be Made
Sustainable?" Innovation Briefs, Nov/Dec 2001), the consortium, ably
assisted by its lead consultant, George C. Eads, Vice President of
Charles River Associates, has engaged in a broad inquiry of how the
mobility-related trends identified in the MIT report might evolve over
the next several decades and what approaches might be available to
influence this evolution in ways that would make mobility more
sustainable. The results have just been published in a 180-page report
entitled "Mobility 2030: Meeting the Challenges to Sustainable
Mobility," released in Brussels on the fifth of July.

For the full text, see below

C. Kenneth Orski
 <mailto:korski at erols.com> korski at erols.com
tel: 301.299.1996
fax: 301.299.4425
 <http://www.innobriefs.com> http://www.innobriefs.com

 

 

 

Vol. 15, No. 5                       Automobile-Related/Environmental
Issues                        Jul/Aug 2004

 

 

                                                   Toward Sustainable
Mobility 

 

Reprinted from Innovation Briefs, July/August 2004

 

 


T

he project adopted a four-stage methodology. In the first stage, it
developed a set of 12 key indicators that could be used to measure the
conditions of "sustainable mobility." The next task involved projecting
how these indicators might evolve over the next several decades if
present trends continued. These projections were then used to assess
whether mobility is likely to become more or less sustainable than it is
today. The report's conclusion was unambiguous: "Today's system of
mobility is not sustainable; nor is it likely to become so if present
trends continue." While the report conceded that not all indicators
point to a worsening of the situation, enough of them do, to indicate
that societies need to act to alter direction. Among the goals the
project considered the most important to improving the prospects for
sustainable mobility were reductions in conventional and greenhouse gas
emissions,  a decrease in highway injuries, reduction in traffic
congestion, provision of a wider range of personal transport options,
and a narrowing of the "mobility opportunities divide" between the
developed and developing countries.

 

      Turning to specifics, the report devotes a separate chapter to
assessing the potential contribution of alternative vehicle technologies
and fuels. It sees considerable promise in diesel and hybrid electric
propulsion systems but is more skeptical about the prospects for fuel
cell systems. "Substantial obstacles must be overcome before the fuel
cell can be considered to be a realistic commercial alternative to
conventional propulsion systems," the report states, reflecting the
preponderant opinion of the world scientific community. The initial
market launch of fuel-cell passenger cars is predicted to occur no
earlier than 2015, with significant high volume production not until
2020.   

 

      The report devotes the final chapter to a discussion of the
likelihood of achieving the goals of sustainable  mobility by 2030 and
beyond. In the developed world, the report speculates, "conventional"
pollutants (CO, HC, NOx)  are likely to decline sharply during the next
few decades-but less so in developing countries, unless the cost of
emission control equipment and cleaner fuels can be reduced
significantly. As for transport-related greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions,
the report estimates they are likely to more than double worldwide by
2050,  which, it contends, would be "clearly unsustainable." There
follows a lengthy discussion on how this scenario might be avoided. The
report concludes that a widespread adoption of advanced fuel and vehicle
technologies plus aggressive travel demand management  policies
throughout the world would be required to return 2050 transport-related
CO2 emission levels to their 2000 levels. Given the developing world's
time lag in adopting new technologies, even that projection could turn
out to be overly optimistic.

 

       Road safety improvements and congestion mitigation are given a
somewhat more cursory treatment, considering how much more attention
these two issues command in the member countries compared to greenhouse
gas emissions. On the other hand, a discussion of how to increase
mobility options and narrow the "mobility opportunity divide" between
developed and developing nations is thorough and imaginative. Of
particular interest is the treatment of the potential contribution of
paratransit and car sharing-both playing a marginal role in developed
countries-to  increasing personal mobility in the developing world. 

 

      The report concludes with a short but revealing discussion of the
limitations of governments and the private sector to move toward more
sustainable patterns of mobility. Limits on institutional capacity
rather than limits on technology will likely determine the speed with
which the sustainable mobility challenges will be addressed-or whether
they get addressed at all. "Achieving sustainable mobility is almost
certain to require changes in transport systems and in how society uses
them...and the changes that may be needed may put great pressures on
some societies' political, cultural and economic institutions,"  the
report states. "There is no guarantee that different societies will be
able (or willing) to undergo these changes."

 

      The report is equally sober in assessing the contribution of
private industry in achieving sustainable mobility. It frankly
recognizes the limited role that the member companies can play in
reducing greenhouse emissions, improving road safety, narrowing the
mobility gap between developed and developing countries or achieving any
of the other goals. To quote the report, "Our ability to act
independently in many areas is extremely limited.... We cannot justify
the production of vehicles that customers won't buy or produce and
distribute fuels for which there is little or no demand.... We have
limited leverage in narrowing the "mobility opportunity divide" and
little influence over whether societies will choose to adopt new
mobility options.

 

      But U.S. representatives to the Sustainable Mobility Project took
a more upbeat view. "We have a lot that we can do, and we are already
hard at work in many areas, especially technology," said Lewis Dale,
Director of Environment and Energy at GM's Public Policy Center. "The
important point to understand is that sustainability in mobility
requires cooperative efforts on the part of many elements of society,
including consumers, businesses and governments."  Deborah Zemke,
Director of Corporate Governance at the Ford Motor Company, echoed these
sentiments: the report is "a call to action for more sectors and
stakeholders to engage with us," she told us.

 

      The report will surely be used by the international automotive
industry to counter criticism that it "does not care about the
environment." However, the report's contention that the industry has
only limited powers to affect progress toward sustainability is surely
going to be challenged by environmental critics pointing out the U.S.
automakers' long-standing opposition to raising fuel efficiency
standards.  Although the report glosses over the considerable
differences among the sponsoring companies about prospects for different
fuels and propulsion technologies and the time needed for
commercializing them (the main contenders being hybrid-electric systems,
fuel cells, hydrogen-burning internal combustion engines and
new-generation diesels), member companies deserve credit for reaching a
consensus on many of the potential strategies to reach sustainable
mobility.

 

      It remains to be seen whether the report will have a lasting
impact. Will it serve as a catalyst for advancing the sustainable
mobility agenda within the sponsoring member companies? Will it set an
example for other transport-related industries, as the GM and Ford
representatives hope, to undertake similar assessments to build a more
complete picture? Will it influence government policies of the
participants' countries? Or will the report,  after a short burst of
publicity, be quietly laid to rest and quickly forgotten?

 

           While it is too early to predict the report's longer term
influence, the sponsoring companies

 clearly hope that their initiative will, at the very least, help to
establish the auto industry's sincerity and good faith in trying to come
to grips with the impact of its activities on the environment.
# 

 

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