System Innovation for Sustainability: Case Studies in sustainable Consumption and Production - Mobility

System Innovation for Sustainability 2 focuses on change towards sustainable personal mobility based on implemented cases analysed from a system perspective. It examines what changes can be made to help us reduce our need for mobility, or start to make use of more sustainable mobility systems. This is clearly a critical and highly problematic area, as increasing living standards of a growing global population have resulted in rapid rises in both car and air travel along with the associated pollution.

Uniquely, this book approaches the problems and solutions from a systems perspective, explaining the meta-trends, specific issues for the mobility sector, socioeconomic trends, political considerations, socio-cultural developments and environmental issues. As well as the mobility system itself, other societal systems that impact the need for mobility, such as labour and taxation, are addressed in order to provide sustainable solutions to our current ‘lock-in’ problems.

Three major problem areas are considered (the ‘three Cs’): carbon emissions (and the growing contribution of mobility to the climate change crisis), congestion, and casualties. And each strategy proposed addresses one or more of these problem areas. Among the cases discussed are: Norway’s carbon compensation scheme for air travel; Madrid’s high-occupancy vehicle lanes; London’s congestion charge scheme; market-based instruments such as eco-labelling for cars; and taxation.

The book identifies opportunities for actors such as governments, manufacturers and consumers to intervene in the complex system to promote sustainable mobility. It concludes with a reflection on problems, trends and action needed. The ‘System Innovation for Sustainability’ series is the fruit of the first major international research network on SCP and will set the standard in this field for some years to come.

It will be required reading for all involved in the policy debate on sustainable production and consumption from government, business, academia and NGOs for designers, scientists, businesses and system innovators.