Introduction
The introduction should give the reader the necessary context regarding mobility and the social and environmental impacts.
Make sure to include information about the impacts of carbon emissions, air pollution, and if relevant, land degradation related to mobility and to clearly establish the industry’s role in the problem.
It should aim to answer the following questions:
- Why is providing clean mobility solutions important?
- What are the impacts of fossil fuel mobility?
- How many tonnes of CO2e does the industry emit? Air pollution? Environmental externalities linked to land degradation?
Read more on how to build a strong introduction in this article.
Core Analysis
The development and adoption of clean mobility solutions are simultaneously occurring across different industries.
The topic addresses the positive environmental impact of clean mobility alternatives. The analysis should focus on substantial technological solutions created and adopted by companies to accelerate the transition towards cleaner mobility. The discussed solutions can address different negative externalities associated with transportation.
To include:
- How many vehicles out of the company's total product ranges offer cleaner transportation (absolute metrics)
- How much do these vehicles account for out of the total portfolio (%)
- A comparison to the electric vehicle market (%) out of the total automotive market (i.e., compare percentage above to X% of EV out of total cars in the market)
- How much of the electric vehicle market does the company make up
- In what ways and by how much the vehicles are cleaner and greener
- What are the environmental impacts, and how long-lasting and profound these impacts are (depth and persistence)
Not to include:
- Hybrid cars
- Renewable energy solutions (not related to the core business)
Mitigated Emissions:
The mitigated emissions are calculated as follows:
The average distance driven by a private vehicle in a year is approximately 18,500 km3. An average car emits 251 grams ( 0.000251 tonnes) of CO2 per kilometre (gCO2/km) & CO2 emissions makeup 76% of the CO2e. Therefore an average car emits 0.0003 gCO2e/km. The average GHG emissions released annually is 6 tCO2e.
Thresholds:
Absolute Threshold: the amount of electric vehicles sold is equal to or above 50,000 cars
Exception: There is no threshold for companies that have a 100% electric vehicle portfolio
For companies developing these green mobility solutions, consider:
- Has the company developed a new greener technology to reduce mobility-related emissions?
- Is the company, on the other hand, adopting these technologies in its core business operations, significantly reliant on the mobility of people and goods?
If yes,
- In what ways are the solutions cleaner and greener?
- How many companies have benefitted from the products or services offered? What is their reach?
- How many of them are on the market or/and actually rolling on the streets?
- Have the solutions disrupted industries?
- How long-lasting or profound are these solutions? Are they permanent or transitional solutions?
- What is their depth? How profound a change do they make?
Please do not include discussions of renewable energy solutions in this topic.
Green mobility solutions for relevant companies include but are not limited to:
...amongst others.
How to measure the impact?
The analysis should discuss the following points:
The number of companies that benefit from the solution and/or total individuals
Its market share
Total GHG emissions avoided
Total air pollution avoided (SOx, NOx, PM...)
Landscape and biodiversity preservation (from using less land to produce) - if relevant
Comparison to the industry average or the average of three main competitors by using the grams of CO2e emissions per km
Make sure to describe the scale of the impact by taking into account:
1/ The breadth of the impact
Is the impact local, national, or global?
How many people are concerned? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
2/ The depth of the impact
Is the life of people concerned deeply affected, or does the issue just marginally impact them?
Are the changes brought by the issue profoundly changing society or the planet?
3/ The persistence of the impact
The analysis should remain critical and nuanced. What are the downsides?
For instance, replacing internal combustion engines with electric vehicles requires batteries. Lithium batteries come et a cost, from their extraction in mines to their end-of-life.
Another example includes the shorter lifespan of electric scooters and bikes, which will require additional extraction of resources to make new ones, and greater harmful waste.
Charging also requires greater energy, as well as hydrogen extraction, and not all are powered by renewables.
Secondary points
If a company has a significant impact by making a product or service very fuel-efficient (over 30% more efficient), then it can be discussed as a secondary point to the analysis.
To discuss it in your analysis, it should have the potential to drastically reduce mobility-associated emissions. Fuel efficiency measures the distance a vehicle can travel per unit of fuel consumed. Although the most widely used fuel efficiency unit is miles per gallon (mpg), please make sure to translate this unit into the metric system, or kilometers per liter (Km/L).
To convert one into the other, you might find this online converter useful.
Caution: Bear in mind that this topic deals with specific green technologies for mobility that ultimately free mobility from fossil fuel use. It should not discuss Efficient Energy Solutions.
However, this can be included within the 'Environmental Solutions' topic (such as for the Industrial Machinery & Goods industry).
