MOBILIZING DEVELOPMENT

33 Mobilizing Sustainable Transport for Development
low-carbon and green transport projects include the
Clean Technology Fund, the Green Climate Fund, the
Global Environment Trust Fund and others. In addition,
MDBs have agreed on a common methodology to track
the share of their portfolio with climate mitigation or
adaptation benefits.
ElectriCity - Innovative Collaboration for New
Clean Public Transport Solutions in Göteborg
Climate funds across these various institutions tend to
focus on energy projects rather than transport projects,
partly because the impacts of a change of energy carrier
are more direct and partly because the climate benefits
of transport projects are more difficult to calculate.
To direct funds to the transport sector, criteria would
need to expand, addressing not only GHG emissions
reductions but also co-benefits, and not only short-term
impacts but also longer time horizons.
2.3 TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
Technology can drive progress in each dimension of
sustainable development and play an essential role
in advancing the ‘Avoid-Shift-Improve’ approach.
From a social perspective, technology can improve
the safety and affordability of transport options and
can enhance transport accessibility for people with
reduced mobility due to disability, age or other factors.
From an environmental perspective, technology offers
new and enhanced opportunities for cleaner, more
climate-friendly transport, emitting less pollution. And
the economic drivers are clear: with more efficient
transport technology and systems cutting down on
waste and wait times, comes higher potential for
economic growth.
Enabling transformative technology
Technology has always advanced through partnership
between public and private entities—through private
company use of publicly funded research, through
the public infrastructure needed to integrate new
technologies into everyday life, and through the public
policy frameworks that serve as the context for progress.
Looking at the innovation chain, it is clear that
development and deployment of new technology has
different drivers at each stage of innovation, and different
policy mechanisms will be most effective depending on
where the technology is in the innovation chain.
As an innovation moves down the line from research
to uptake, it is critical that policy and investment
frameworks adapt to the new reality, and that
decision makers work to integrate technological
innovations into society in a strategic way, with longrange
vision and an emphasis on safety, equity and
environmental sustainability.
Göteborg, Sweden’s second largest city, is the site of
“ElectriCity” – a collaborative venture of 15 stakeholder
organizations from industry, academia, authorities and
politics to develop new solutions for sustainable public
transport. “ElectriCity” is testing 100% electric buses on
one of the most modern routes in the world. The buses
are completely silent and emission-free, and being run
on electricity from wind and hydro power.
Standard investment appraisals often do not take into
account all of the costs and benefits that impact society
and the environment, and “ElectriCity” seeks a more
complete picture. It calculates the monetary value of
the electric bus line and also considers socio-economic
and environmental factors such as noise, travel time,
emissions, energy use, taxes and the use of natural
resources. If all of the 400 buses in Göteborg were run
on electricity instead of diesel, the total annualized
societal saving would be up to EUR 10 million. Among
other areas, the savings stem from reduced noise and
air pollution, which is estimated to lead to substantially
decreased health care costs. The annual reduction in
CO 2
emissions would total 33,000 tons, corresponding
to emissions from about 3,000 Swedish households.
The linear comparison from small cities to mega-cities
shows immense GHG reduction potential.
The 15 stakeholder-strong “ElectriCity” public-privatepartnership
(PPP) comes to the conclusion that all
cities can reduce noise and pollution, while also
creating socio-economic benefits in a sustainable
and innovative way through collaborative business
case thinking for public transport.
The PPP model is open and inclusive. Since its launch
in 2015, it has been shared with thousands of city
developers, mayors and policy makers in developed
and developing parts of the world.
Connected to recommendations: 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10