More than 1000 companies have set Science Based Targets (SBT) to reach net zero emissions by 2050. In many sectors, it has become clear that Scope 3 emissions - those from supply chain operations, including the transport of goods – can make up as much as 90% of an organizations carbon footprint. This provides the freight industry a significant demand-driven opportunity to accelerate the sector’s decarbonization efforts. Harnessing multi-stakeholder and multi-modal approaches to leapfrog key barriers (i.e.: scattered demand side commitment; shortage of ZE technologies across entire logistics networks, etc.), to achieve a zero-emission future. Green products and services are often limited to certain corridor pilots and green lanes. As a result, there are fewer options for freight buyers to reduce their transport impact, which limits market confidence in decarbonization and restricts financing for such green transition initiatives. Recognizing this challenge, the Forum Supply Chain & Transport CEO community developed a proposal supporting pooling of green demand to accelerate the net zero transition. Two mutually reinforcing mechanisms are foreseen: 1) support for multi-modal buyer club models, and 2) development of one industry standard for book and claims carbon credit accounting, for all modes of freight transport....

In recent decades, urban populations in China’s cities have grown substantially, and rising incomes have led to a rapid expansion of car ownership. Indeed, China is now the world’s largest market for automobiles. The combination of urbanization and motorization has led to an urgent need for transportation policies to address urban problems such as congestion, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. For the past three years, an MIT team led by Joanna Moody, research program manager of the MIT Energy Initiative’s Mobility Systems Center, and Jinhua Zhao, the Edward H. and Joyce Linde Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and director of MIT’s JTL Urban Mobility Lab, has been examining transportation policy and policymaking in China. “It’s often assumed that transportation policy in China is dictated by the national government,” says Zhao. “But we’ve seen that the national government sets targets and then allows individual cities to decide what policies to implement to meet those targets.”...