No abstract

The transportation sector represents a major proportion of the global greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. Fossil fuels supply over 95% of total energy used by the world transportation sector and this sector is responsible for 23% of the world energy related GHGs emissions. Factors such as number of mobile sources (vehicles), variety of technologies, many consumers with various driving behaviour, and variety of fuels (from conventional to alternative with different quality) have caused a more complicated situation for decision makers aiming to develop policies of CO 2 emissions reduction in this sector. This study compares European and Iranian experience in developing carbon dioxide-related policies in transportation sector. Vehicle production in Iran has grown dramatically during the last decade. But, due to the high energy subsidies on the local market, weak technical regulations, and low access to new technologies, Iranian automakers have not enhanced the fuel efficiency of new products as their global counterparts. It is expected that fuel demand in Iran will grow along with the growth of the motorization rate and fuel efficiency level of the road fleet.Benchmarking with the European policies along with the SWOT analysis has concluded four strategies as the core concept of this analysis: mandatory regulation versus voluntary agreement, CO 2 emissions versus fuel consumption regulation, approaching efficient fiscal policies (taxes for conventional and subsidies for low carbon fuels), and dieselization of the LDVs fleet. The fifth strategy, as national fuel economy regulation, should be addressed to coordinate the others. In this regards, a set of policy packages should be developed relating to governmental institutions. It should be mentioned that increasing public awareness should be addressed as the basic approach of any strategic roadmap in the country.

Regarding the significant share of the automotive industry in both producing economic value added and employment, this sector is dominated in the industrial development approach. On the other side, different societies have focussed on the emissions, energy consumption and also waste production of road transportation as important risk threatening environmental health. So, the supply side is highly expected to deal with the expectations of stakeholders relating to sustainability concerns and related risks. To evaluate the implementation of environmental policies in the direction of sustainability and respond to the sustainability and environmental concerns of stakeholders, similar organisations need a uniform framework for performance appraisal. The present study aimed to identify, select and validate the environmental key performance indicators for sustainability assessment of the automotive industry to create a framework for selecting the indicators and using them as a uniform method for better comparison of the performance of car companies in the field of environmental sustainability. In this research, key environmental performance indicators are studied in accordance with sustainability evaluation in the vehicle industry and final indicators introduced using SMARTL criteria. The results showed that 41 indicators included in five categories of waste and waste water, soil contaminators and solid waste, carbon production and energy consumption and management are introduced according to ISO14031 model. Evaluating and monitoring these indicators, defined based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030, can both reflect the quantitative improvement in the environmental performance. Additionally, using SMARTL key environmental performance indicators, the organization is able to comprehensively manage the environmental performance in accordance with environmental and sustainable development goals and policy. Using a uniform method for evaluating and monitoring the environmental performance allows us to compare the environmental performance of similar companies in line with sustainable development policies and creates a competition that allows the organisation to always increase its performance in a positive way.