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You are here: Home / Archives for Strategic Adaptation / Transportation

9 November 2016 By David McEwen

Ratified Paris, Now What?

paris-ratified-blogpost-2

Now that major economies have begun to ratify the Paris Climate Accord, countries need to deliver on their pledges. But how? And what will this mean for businesses?

In part one of this article we identified that businesses would inevitably bear the brunt of country-level reductions to greenhouse gas emissions. In this blog we drill into what businesses should do to prepare.

While governments are initially targeting the low hanging fruit of the few dozen or hundred companies that produce the bulk of their counties’ emissions (think coal fired power stations and steel makers, for example), even this may affect many organisations’ cost bases as input prices for power and other affected items rise, unless you’ve already insulated your company by purchasing renewable energy.

Regulated efficiency initiatives to reduce energy consumption and emissions are also gaining pace, benefitting firms whose buildings, manufacturing processes and products are already highly efficient. Innovation in energy and emissions efficiency will become a key point of difference for makers of a wide range of products and services.

Emerging categories such as electric cars (charged from renewable sources) and autonomous vehicles (which eventually could reduce the total number of vehicles and radically reduce congestion inefficiencies, as well as being programmed to drive as efficiently as possible) take efficiency initiatives into the realm of disruptive technologies. Companies will need to think years and sometimes decades ahead when designing product innovations to ensure they are not left behind by technological upstarts.

Eventually, regulations will extend to a broader range of GHG-producing compounds, including the fluorinated gases used in TV screens and the HFCs that have replaced CFCs as a refrigerant and propellent in spray cans. This will spark innovation in the design of products or processes that currently rely on such compounds, as well as services or products to ensure that their use is tightly controlled and doesn’t lead to them escaping into the atmosphere, either during or following the product’s lifecycle.

While the Australian government is currently clinging to its Direct Action, “pay the polluter to pollute less” policy, inevitably that will need to give way to a “polluter pays” mechanism.

Meanwhile, governments will push the burden of achieving GHG targets onto future administrations, which will compound the level of rapid transformation that businesses will be forced to deliver as the Paris commitment deadline approaches. And there is a clear expectation from the United Nations that many countries’ commitments will need to be strengthened in coming years in order to limit warming to the agreed target of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius.

Companies that take the lead today will be well positioned when this crunch comes.

Call Adaptive Capability today to develop the strategy for your business.

 

Image Credit: blindholm / BigStock

Filed Under: Clean Energy, Climate Change Mitigation, Green Energy, Transportation, Uncategorized

30 April 2015 By David McEwen

Autonomous Vehicles – how a technology disruptor could be good for people and planet

Autonomous Vehicles - how a technology disruptor could be good for people and planetWhy is technology giant Google developing self-driving cars?

For several years, Google has been testing a fleet of autonomous (self-driving) cars. If this seems like a radical departure from their core business of Internet search and advertising, you might be underestimating the depth of their vision. Ultimately, a future of self-driving vehicles could be transformative, benefitting people and planet in a host of ways, though to the detriment of a number of existing industries.

In this first blog in a series on AV’s we look at some of the direct benefits: safety and efficiency.

Safety

Where human drivers are often inaccurate, inconsistent and somewhat irrational, a car with a computer behind the wheel is the opposite. As such, the only accident Google’s fleet of autonomous cars has notched up in nearly a million miles of driving was caused by the driver of another vehicle.

Bristling with sensors that enable the computer to analyse what’s happening around it in three dimensions and 360 degrees, a self-driving car is applying much more rigorous analysis to its driving decisions than a human driver ever could. It never takes its “eyes” off the road to change the radio station, shout at the kids in the back seat or furtively check a text message on its phone, meaning no concentration lapses. So they’re pretty safe (unless the computer ever crashes).

Fewer accidents would ease the stress on emergency services and hospitals, although government revenues would dip to the extent that there would be fewer speeding and DUI fines issued. Of course, fewer tickets means less cases to be contested, freeing up the courts for more serious infringements. It would also mean the end of arguments about who is going to be the designated (non drinking) driver. And clearly, both the smash repair and taxi industries could be adversely affected.

Efficiency

Where human drivers often rev their engines, accelerate and brake heavily, frequently exceed the most efficient speed given the aerodynamics of their vehicle and generally drive unevenly, a computer can be programmed to optimise fuel efficiency. So that’s an initial tick for the environment.

Network the car to traffic control systems and real time traffic data (such as Google already collects from users of its phones and Maps app), and the computer can now optimise your route to avoid traffic congestion, saving both time and fuel.

And things get really interesting when you start to get a sizeable number of autonomous vehicles on the roads. If they can sense and talk to each other, then road congestion would really ease up – they’d be able to negotiate lane merges and intersections more smoothly; pull away from traffic lights in unison and so on. In turn, traffic control systems could take data from cars and use it to synchronise traffic light sequences in real time along major routes. Following distances could be reduced between autonomous vehicles, since each car in a contiguous convoy would know the intentions of the others: only the lead AV would need to maintain a traditional safe distance to the human-driven vehicle in front.

These innovations could significantly increase the capacity of existing roads and again reduce journey times and fuel or energy wastage. And on roads away from high pedestrian or cyclist zones, speed limits for AV’s could potentially be increased.

Benefits multiplying

In this post we’ve only scratched the surface of the profound impacts broad adoption of AV’s could have. In the next instalment of this series we’ll look at potential impacts to the way we design cities plus how the effects might be felt in other parts of the transportation sector.

But back to the question of where it fits into Google’s strategy?

Well, one reason is that if you no longer need to devote your attention to driving, it could be pretty boring being chauffeured by your car to your destination. And to Google that means idle eyeballs looking for content and therefore potentially being exposed to ads. AV’s are likely to feature sophisticated entertainment, app and browsing options.

 

Talk to Adaptive Capability today about what the future means for your business.

Image credit: Liushengfilm/ShutterStock

Filed Under: Climate Change Adaptation, Information Technology, Strategic Adaptation, Transportation

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