"Business strategies for the climate: Mobility"

The global development of transport has accompanied and still accompanies the growth of world economies and allows the development of territories. However, transport weighs heavily in global greenhouse gas emissions, with 14% of total annual emissions. The transport sector is mobilizing to find answers that allow social and economic development, while fighting against climate change.

A number of companies, notably within the French Association of Enterprises for the Environment (EpE), have worked in the last decade on solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector. These solutions concern both the mobility of people and that of goods. In all sectors, they work to reduce emissions, and in transport, they develop solutions whose deployment is at the heart of their strategies. These companies believe that mobility is both a lever for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for the social and economic development of regions. This is why EpE companies are improving existing vehicles every day, while inventing new ways for the mobility of goods and people.

The guide "Business strategies for the climate: Mobility" is the result of the work of the "Mobility in the sustainable city" working group of EpE, conducted between 2012 and 2014. Chaired by Patrice-Henry Duchêne, Delegate for Sustainable Development of PSA Peugeot Citroën, this group brings together representatives of EpE member companies from all sectors of mobility, air, rail or land, vehicles or equipment, energy or services, who shared their experiences and thoughts. To promote a constructive debate on the subject, external experts, from the scientific and associative world, the public authorities and consultants, have been invited from time to time to intervene and dialogue with the members of EpE.

This three-part publication is aimed at companies wishing to best integrate the issue of climate change into their consideration of the mobility of their customers, employees and goods. In addition, it is aimed at all those who wish to discover the solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector, offered by the member companies of EpE.

"How can we imagine achieving the objectives recommended by the IPCC without reducing emissions due to transport? How can we imagine reducing these emissions without renouncing our development and mobility which has become an essential component of human progress?

The member companies of EpE have understood this issue. In all sectors, they are working to reduce emissions, and in transport, they are developing solutions whose deployment is at the heart of their strategies. These companies believe that mobility is both a lever for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for the social and economic development of regions. "

Pierre-André de Chalendar, Chairman of EpE, Chairman and CEO of Saint-Gobain

3 main chapters illustrated by concrete cases from the practices of EpE members

Chapter 1, entitled "Mobility and climate change: the challenges", specifies the link between climate change and mobility and recalls the challenges in a few figures and key information. We discover that the sector's greenhouse gas emissions are constantly increasing, strongly correlated with global growth.

Transport players are therefore mobilizing to find technical and organizational solutions that will significantly reduce the sector's emissions and thus contribute to the success of the global objectives of limiting climate change.

Chapter 2, titled "Reinventing vehicles and energies", shows that companies have been working on vehicle performance for many years. There are many avenues explored, and today it is becoming possible to produce vehicles with minimal greenhouse gas emissions. This progress concerns all modes of transport: cars, motorcycles, planes, trains, boats, etc.

This chapter also reviews the engines and energies that will drive our vehicles forward in the future. Less emitting energies are already available or in the process of being so at an acceptable cost in the coming years: biofuels, liquefied gases, electricity, fuel cells.

Finally, we wonder about what the car will be in the near future and in the medium term. While the French government is mobilizing the entire French automotive industry on the 2L / 100km car, the technology giants are increasingly interested in this market and are developing hyper-connected, or even completely autonomous, vehicles.

Chapter 3, entitled “Inventing economic models for low-carbon mobility”, explores the consequences of climate change on the mobility of goods and people.

Companies are inventing new models of travel, such as carpooling, carsharing or reverse logistics.

To meet the challenge of climate change, carriers and shippers alike are rethinking freight transport to put them on a low-carbon path. This first involves optimizing logistics flows, but also choosing the least emitting mode of transport when this is possible from an operational point of view.

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