by Carolina Chantrill, Asociación Sustentar

Asociación Sustentar started as a group of classmates and friends who shared political science as a major and were concerned about the climate change crisis. Ten years ago, pollution and climate change was merely in agenda for the media and politics. They envision an organization capable of making a positive impact and showing the importance of contributing to a more sustainable future.

Nowadays, Asociación Sustentar is a community of young leaders and professionals with a multidisciplinary profile that share values and vision. There are three working areas: climate change, circular economy, and sustainable mobility, all gearing efforts to support platforms, forums and cooperation networks at national, regional, and international level in order to create collective knowledge and experience and fuel action towards a sustainable future.

Sustentar´s Sustainable Mobility area has existed from its early steps and become a core part of the organization. Its work has contributed to support local and national governments through technical assistance, to the development of cases of study and knowledge products of all sorts, and to capacity building by organizing and conducting webinars, workshops, and training, while strengthening regional communities of professionals, academics and decision makers of the transport sector. These initiatives include coordinating the Transport Working Group of the LEDS Global Partnership for Latin America and the Caribbean region, and the Sustainable Urban Mobility Platform for Latin America of the Euroclima+ programme and the MobilizeYourCity initiative. 

The mobility team aims to support the development of sustainable mobility within the Latin American and Caribbean region that considers the triple impact of our actions and the multisectoral efforts. The possibility of building more resilient and accessible and habitable cities drives this team. Moreover, we believe in cities where electric mobility is fully integrated, active mobility is encouraged, and infrastructure is focused on making cycling or walking a better choice. 

Sustentar joining the SLOCAT Partnership is the result of our Sustainable Mobility team’s effort who have repeatedly engaged and collaborated with SLOCAT over the years. Furthermore, we continue to forge a future together as we expect to scale up the collaboration and joint efforts with all the SLOCAT partners to accelerate the transition to efficient, resilient, inclusive and low carbon mobility systems. After the pandemic and in these current times where distances have shrunken and with a climate crisis that involves and impacts each one of us, it became clear that unity is the path forward to every breakthrough. To be a part of SLOCAT is a great honor and it challenges us to take on more ambitious challenges. 

It is by creating alliances and working together that our mission will be achieved, collaborative work and sharing knowledge is the basis for a more sustainable mobility, cities and therefore, future. We look forward to working with the SLOCAT community, continuing growing side by side, and making sustainable mobility a reality. 

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Carolina Chantrill is an Environmental Engineer (Argentine Catholic University, 2009) and Master of Urban Planning (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015). In early 2020, she joined Sustentar as Director of Sustainable Mobility. She has worked over the last 15 years for the private, public and non-profit sectors on topics related to environmental management, pollution remediation, water and sanitation urban systems, solid waste management, urban planning, informal neighborhood upgrading, urban infrastructure and technology innovation, and low-emissions transport and mobility, among others.