Lindblad Eliminates Single-Use Plastic Fleetwide

The potential of technological innovation to address urban sustainability has been widely acknowledged over the last decade. Across cities globally, local governments have engaged in partnership ar…

While vehicles provide economic and societal benefits, they come with a sizeable carbon footprint. The European Green Deal is a chance for car manufacturers to make their processes more circular, write Maya Ben Dror and Tilmann Vahle. Maya Ben Dror is the Lead on Shaping the Future of Mobility at the World Economic Forum. Tilmann Vahle is the Lead on Circular Mobility Solutions at SYSTEMIQ. Both authors are involved in the Circular Cars Initiative, a World Economic Forum project. The automotive industry is a driver of Europe’s economic value creation, competitive sovereignty, and societal wellbeing. But road transport is also responsible for 20% of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions from vehicles’ materials are expected to account for 60% of the total vehicle lifecycle emissions by 2040.

Unless we make some major adjustments to the way the planet is run, many observers believe that business as usual puts us on a path to catastrophe. Around 90 per cent of global biodiversity loss and water stress (when the demand for water is greater than the available amount), and a significant proportion of the harmful emissions that are driving climate change, is caused by the way we use and process natural resources. Over the past three decades, the amount of raw materials extracted from the earth, worldwide, has more than doubled. At the current rate of extraction, we’re on course to double the amount again, by 2060.