Investing in freight transport decarbonisation

Pressure to invest in decarbonisation is growing rapidly. This is occurring domestically, with the launch of the UK’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan this summer, and also internationally, with pressure mounting on all sectors to decarbonise at ever increasing speeds as another IPCC report is launched and COP 26 looms on the horizon.

However the ingredients to clarify precisely where that investment should go, remain elusive. Technology pathways, detailed policy/incentives, customer readiness, infrastructure evolution are evolving but can sometimes be hard to disentangle and decipher.

In 2020 the Decarbonising UK Freight Transport (DUKFT) Network funded four projects that aimed to answer research questions investigating freight transport decarbonisation investment decisions. The projects explored the roles of decision makers, financiers, and the methods that characterise freight technology and fuel-based decarbonisation options.

This event will bring together the findings of the four projects and discuss ways to accelerate investment into the decarbonisation of freight transport. There will be brief presentations of the findings, followed by a Q&A and discussion with the presenters.

The event will be chaired by Tristan Smith, Director of DUKFT and Associate Professor, UCL Energy Institute.

The speakers and their topics include;

• Marina Garyfalou, Researcher at TRL, A wide scope analysis of the factors influencing freight decarbonisation investment decisions
• Nishatabbas Rehmatulla, Principal Research Fellow at UCL Energy Institute, An exploration of climate alignment in freight related investment decisions
• Graham Parkhurst, Professor of Sustainable Mobility at University of West England, Co-produced Route mapping to Accelerate Freight Decarbonisation: A Transdisciplinary Learning and Decision Framework
• Tracy Ross, Senior Research Fellow at Loughborough University, An Integrated System and Service Design Approach for Decarbonisation of UK Freight Transportation

About DUKFT

Decarbonising UK Freight Transport is a network of forty academic and industry partners funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The network is exploring the questions that need to be answered in order to enable the decarbonisation of energy/propulsion across the road, rail, sea and air freight modes. The Network aims to collect and distil current knowledge, as well as to identify and de-risk the key remaining research challenges that can unleash significant freight-decarbonisation targeted investment and guide enabling policy.