In June 2012, twenty years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio, where countries adopted Agenda 21 – a blueprint to rethink economic growth, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection – the United Nations organized the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio de Janerio, Brazil. The Rio+20 Conference brought together governments, international institutions and major groups to agree on a range of smart measures that can reduce poverty while promoting decent jobs, clean energy and a more sustainable and fair use of resources.

2015 Transport Commitment Report 

In September 2015, SLoCaT has released the second status report: Contribution of Transport Commitments to the Global Goals on Sustainable Development. The 2015 report analyzes the contribution that voluntary transport commitments are making to the Global Goals on Sustainable Development that will guide global action on development in the next 15 years. This analysis shows strong linkages between the transport commitments and the post-2015 development agenda, which can provide further impetus to the transport sector to further implementation of these commitments.

“Sustainable Transport matters when it comes to improving people’s lives.” This, together with: “The transport sector is taking important action to address the two key global policy processes of 2015: sustainable development and climate change” are major findings of the 2015 SLoCaT Transport Commitments Report. You can download the full text of the report here.

2013 Transport Commitment Report

In June 2013, SLoCaT and its members published the first status report on the progress of voluntary commitments on sustainable transport. 

At Rio+20, business associations, multi-lateral development banks and civil society organizations were encouraged to make voluntary commitments to implement concrete policies, plans, programmes, projects and actions to promote sustainable development and poverty eradication. Transport was the biggest sector in terms of financial commitments with its 17 Voluntary Commitments on Sustainable Transport. Furthermore, in June 2013 Six additional Voluntary Commitments were made by the sustaianable transport community to help to track the sustainability of the transport sector and also contribute towards reporting on the implementation and impact of the existing Voluntary Commitments on Sustainable Transport. You can download the full text of the report here.

Rio+20 Conference and Sustainable Transport

Throughout the negotiations, sustainable transport community worked actively to promote the contribution of sustainable transport to the post-2015 development framework. Sustainable transport was included among the 26 priority areas in the Future We Want Document. For detailed account of sustainable transport events and outreach documents on transport, please visit here

UN Action Network on Sustainable Transport 

The UN Sustainable Development Action Networks are action-oriented communities where stakeholders may collaborate and share information on certain sustainable development topics and campaigns – they are meant to catalyze actions among all stakeholders and their networks to implement concrete policies, plans, programmes and projects in support of the objectives of the network. The inclusion of sustainable transport to the list of Action Networks for Sustainable Development follows a 2012 decision by UN-Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon to make transport one of the six building blocks for sustainable development in the Five Year Action Agenda for his second term. 

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Action Network on Sustainable Transport integrates different initiatives on sustainable, low carbon transport. It is an action-oriented community where stakeholders may collaborate and share information on sustainable transport – it is meant to catalyze actions among all stakeholders and their networks to implement concrete policies, plans, programmes and projects in support of sustainable transport.