Technology has clearly advanced into a sustainability lever for societies. Everyday activities can be performed faster and leaner with a clearcut impact on the economical bottomline. Individuals and organisations are capable of connecting easier by utilising the opportunities offered by technology with a clearcut impact on the societal bottomline. Monitoring & Evaluating emission development and deploying emission-low technologies defines the impact on the ecological bottomline.
In addition, coming migration paths request for technology support. Roughly ten years from now 2/3 of all people are going to be living in urban areas, whereas 1/3 of the people shall be living in big cities (i.e. population size of at least 500k). Not only is the inter city mobility going to turn into a challenge, but also the intra city mobility shall require technology solutions to tackle the challenges. This is where emobility and ist technology options comes into play. It reflects the potential of individual mobility (i.e. private car e-mobility) as well as public (i.e bus and rail e-mobility) and business mobility (i.e. vans and truck e-mobility).
The effect of sustainability measures may be more easily seen and felt by the public, when involving a larger group of stakeholders. For us, taking a closer look at Slovenia therefore means extending the view from the Balkans and Austria to the Visegrad States and further on to the Baltics. We are more closely looking at 12 states in these three groups, which are termed the Three Seas Initiative region. They include countries that border on the Baltic Sea to the north, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest and the Black Sea to the southeast. Now taking a quick look at these countries shows that quite a lot is happening at the moment:
Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, is the first EU capital to have announced a zero waste plan and the city prides itself on having a significant per capita green space provision. Vienna, the capital of Austria, is setting a course for the region by providing numerous sustainable service offerings. This encompasses concious shopping, organic agriculture, smart infrastructure and not to forget that over one-third of its energy consumption is covered by renewable energy sources.
Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, adopted its Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) in 2019 and is very much dedicated to implementing green solutions. Bucharest, the capital of Romania, is dedicated to advancing in the field of electric mobility. Currently there is a tender for expanding its electric bus fleet to an extra 100 buses. Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and its Municipality as well as the European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a 60 mn EUR framework loan to to develop an environmentally sustainable transport system in the city.
Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, displays a spread between its residents and commuters that enter the city only temporarily. Approximately a quarter of Prague residents use the car as their main means of transportation, whreas for commuters this number goes up to almost 50%. Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is gradually picking up on emobility initiatives. The city‘s modal split is currently strongly dominated by private cars of which only a small portion is being phased into electric cars. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, has set itself a Climate Action Plan targeting a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030 in comparison to 2007. Budapest, the capital of Hungary, had originally aimed at installing an additional 900 charging stations by 2025 for the city and recently announced to add 176 new charging stations for the Budapest Airport as well.
Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, was recently announced by an International Award Jury to become the European Green Capital 2023. Riga, the capital of Latvia, is home to about of 1/3 of Latvia’s population, i.e. about 700k people, of which only about 4% purchase new vehicles. This strongly emphasises its circular economy objectives. Vilnius, the capital of Lithunaia, is currently undertaking the Green Wave Initiative, encompassing the engagement to plant ten mn shrubs, 100k trees and 300k climbing vines.
Sustainability is in many cases equated to a reduction in GHG emissions. The transport sector is a huge emission contributor and the increased commercilisation of EVs may become an emission reduction lever. The market potential for e-mobility is huge and it is being heavily supported by the European Green Deal, which amongst others targets 1mn BEV charging points in 2025.
Emobility turns beneficial for the general public and ready-to-be-promoted when it can be utilised borderless, independent of district, city, country or region. This requires gerenating economies of scope and scale to establish open market and open business models – a key objective of the e-movement. So come and join us on our endeavour to make it happen!