What is on your wish list for a better world? For many of us, such a list would be very long indeed! Arguably, at the very top, would be ensuring we tackle the epic challenge of mitigating runaway climate change. This is perhaps the biggest issue facing us in the future – and in fact, even in our current lives. There are multiple plans to solve the issue – many of them anchored in and round the Paris Climate Accords, which 196 parties around the world signed up to in 2015.

So far so good – however, geopolitics and other practical challenges have subsequently come into play, and that noble principle that was signed on 12 December nearly 8 years ago isn’t progressing as far and fast as it surely should be. 

Electrification – the good and the bad

That being said, there is good news when it comes to electrification – the potential electrification of almost everything that moves – and many things that don’t! Most notably perhaps, momentous change is now underway within the automotive industry. Change, by its nature, is of course, disruptive, and that disruption is a potent cocktail of challenge and opportunity, where the end-game is seemingly well defined, but to my mind remains work-in-progress.

In particular, the challenge remains in tackling what I believe is the true ‘elephant in the room’ for automotive – which is the under-utilisation of the private passenger car. Consider this – it’s a very expensive asset, manufactured using valuable energy and finite resources, and something that is part of the very fabric of individual expression for millions. Shifting the ownership model to a usership model is fine in principle but fraught with complex technical and cultural challenges – but here’s how I think it will come about…

Fuelling the private car debate

An increasing majority of the global population are now living in our towns and cities – many of those deemed to be megacities. In many places, we have a disproportionately ageing population. High cost of living challenges progressively mean car ownership is out of reach for many. That starts to look like the ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ scenario to me, and if you add to the reality check of it all – in terms of practical application, scaling up the required mining and minerals processing capability to build around 70 million cars each and every year…something’s gotta give!  And a supply-constrained market is what we already see when it comes to the global EV (electric vehicle) market.

‘If I could turn back time’ is both a great song and a glorious notion for many things in life of course, and if I had that opportunity in terms of the ensuing electric vehicle revolution to go back in time – I’d like to see the buses, taxis, vans, and trucks electrified well ahead of passenger cars. It’s a kind of pareto thing: the minority of the vehicles in the urban environment, all those commercial vehicles I mentioned, are causing the majority of the airborne pollution – the particulate matter. You see, shifting from suck-squeeze-bang-blow tech to electric has always had a twin imperative – but we’ve inadvertently ‘weighted’ global CO2  over the local emissions.

In this regard, I would suggest it prudent for other countries to take note of China’s ‘14th Five Year Plan for a Modern & Comprehensive Transportation System’ (2021-2025) which highlights the development principle of green transition, and people-oriented development and innovation. It indicates amongst other important things that 72% of China’s urban public buses are expected to be electric by 2025. And let me tell you – that’s a huge number of buses!

Hopeful for the future

Without doubt there are multiple and complex challenges ahead – especially for those transitioning from the known to the unknown. However, if we anchor much of our collective journey around as many of the core principles of circular economics as possible, such as maximising efficiency and utilisation – we will get to that better world. And to finish on a monetary dynamic – much of what world-renowned environmentalist John Elkington cites in his recent book ‘Green Swans – The Coming Boom In Regenerative Capitalism’ could well deliver an important impetus for it all!