Nordic Leaders in Sustainable Mobility

The Nordic countries, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, are taking leadership in eco-friendly transport when it comes to policy as well as technology.

The Nordic countries, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, are taking leadership in eco-friendly transport when it comes to policy as well as technology. Future scenarios for sustainable transport systems in the Nordic countries will be presented at Driving Sustainability´09.

Iceland, with 75% of the population in and around Reykjavik and 100% of its electricity from renewable sources is the perfect place for electric cars and hopes are high that EV technology can be a key factor in system change in energy for transport in Iceland.

The agreement between Mitsubishi and the Icelandic Government signed at Driving Sustainability ´08 makes Iceland along with only a few other European nations into a priority market for the i-MiEV electric car from Mitsubishi in 2010. For more info click here. Having just met with a Mitsubishi delegation in Reykjavik today it is very clear that economic incentives from governments are critical in facilitating the transformation to CO2 free transport systems. A good example of this is a recent UK government announcement that purchasers of EV’s will get subsidies of up to £5,000 to encourage them to buy electric or plug-in hybrid cars.

Another example is the 2008 declaration of the Danish Government that EV´s will be exempt from the 180% car tax in that country at least until 2012, and not subject to any serious taxation until 2015. See some serious policy making right here.

This is exactly the role of government; create the economic environment to speed up the introduction of new technologies that will eventually benefit the national economy, a country’s natural environment and the purse of individuals and companies alike.

In my next blogs, I´ll post a few examples of Nordic leadership in the field of sustainable mobility. It is a region that is consistently ranked as the best place on earth to live in terms of education, health care and environment, and no doubt it will also be a leader in introducing the silent and non-polluting transport systems of the future.