Mobility Forum

Over the past decade, the auto industry has recognised its responsibility to include environmental protection in its business activities and has greatly reduced the environmental impacts of its production processes and products. A compilation of these efforts can be found under action already undertaken by automotive manufacturers. Auto manufacturers are already working together in some, mainly technical areas.

However, despite these steady improvements, environmental impacts from transport are still increasing due to more vehicles on the road and more kilometers driven per capita. The challenges of reducing the still increasing environmental impacts of transport while preserving individual mobility and necessary transportation of goods in developed countries and providing access to mobility in developing countries are such that further collaborative efforts are needed.

Against this backdrop, UNEP invited automotive manufacturers to join in a voluntary initiative to work towards sustainable cevelopment. On May 10th in Paris, representatives of BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Fiat, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda Motor, Hyundai, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Toyota Motor Corporation, Volkswagen and AB Volvo found that such a Mobility Forum could bring added value in specific areas, e.g., dialogue with stakeholders, reliable and comparable sustainability reporting, getting ready for the Kyoto Protocol and its mechanisms (emissions trading, joint implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism), and addressing the transport related environmental problems of mega-cities as well as of developing countries.

In the meantime, a multistakeholder process to develop sector-specific indicators for sustainability reporting, and a working group to design an environmentally-friendly driving behaviour awareness raising campaign were initiated and a report on achievements since the Rio Conference and reamining challenges was prepared.