Abstract
It is now almost three decades since the concept of ‘sustainable mobility’ first appeared in the 1992 EU Green Paper on the Impact of Transport on the Environment. This paper reviews the literature and reflects on how societies’ understanding and interpretation of the concept of sustainable mobility has evolved. We track this evolution over six dimensions: research and policy, transport impacts and categories, scientific disciplines, methodological approach, and research questions. From this review we assert that the mainstream understanding and interpretation of sustainable mobility can be grouped into four generations of studies. The first generation of studies (1992–1993) were techno-centric and focused on how to limit transport’s negative environmental impacts by improving then-existing technology. The second, third and fourth generations of studies (1993–2000, 2000–2010 and 2010–2018 respectively) increasingly acknowledge the limitations of preceding efforts to achieve sustainable mobility, and open for a more diverse set of alternatives. These studies have gradually become more interdisciplinary in nature—reflecting the inter-relatedness of mobility with all other aspects of society. We conclude that despite the ensuing elevation of mobility into the holistic picture society, we still have not achieved a sustainable mobility system. Furthermore, what is much needed now, more than ever, is a bold set of new narratives.
Highlights
“This Green Paper provides an assessment of the overall impact of transport on the environment and presents a Common strategy for ‘sustainable mobility’ which should enable transport to fulfil its economic and social role while containing its harmful effects on the environment” [1] (p. 5)
The paper was a direct European Union (EU) response to the challenges raised a few years earlier by the United Nations (UN) report, Our Common Future [2]. It was a clear statement of transport policy in the EU, and it focused on the rapidly increasing environmental impacts from the transport sector
Some scholars argue that there is a difference between the terms sustainable development and sustainability—for example, that sustainable development gives priority to development and that sustainability is primarily about the environment, (e.g., [4]), or that sustainability refers to a goal whereas sustainable development refers to the process that leads us to sustainability (e.g., [5])
Summary
“This Green Paper provides an assessment of the overall impact of transport on the environment and presents a Common strategy for ‘sustainable mobility’ which should enable transport to fulfil its economic and social role while containing its harmful effects on the environment” [1] (p. 5). The paper was a direct European Union (EU) response to the challenges raised a few years earlier by the United Nations (UN) report, Our Common Future [2] It was a clear statement of transport policy in the EU, and it focused on the rapidly increasing environmental impacts from the transport sector. Almost three decades after Our Common Future and the Green Paper, the UN presented the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development comprising 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 targets [3] This, too, was another bold step, but the apparent absence of transport and its impacts in this document is striking as well as alarming. The challenges and literature review presented here should be relevant for studying how to achieve sustainable goods transport and, achieving sustainable mobility in developing countries.
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