Project overview
Working with project partner TRL (The Future of Transport), this project identified factors influencing freight decarbonisation investment decisions by interviewing key stakeholders, including fleet owners, freight operators, freight trade associations, professional bodies and those making investment decisions within the public sector.
While the key drivers for decarbonising UK freight were seen to vary to some extent between sectors, whole life cost was deemed very important across all the sectors.
This indicates that to decarbonise freight, the UK Government should implement policies that support the delivery of economies of scale that will translate to cost-reductions until cleaner technologies reach cost parity with incumbent technologies.
Governments around the world have succeeded with policies promoting direct subsidies, grants, research and innovation credits or green fleets procurement schemes. Mandates forcing fleets to decarbonise is another approach that has been used with success, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards or phasing out fossil fuels.
