Over the next two weeks, Next City will unroll short profiles of 77 people, places and ideas that have changed cities this year. Together, they make up our 2012 Disruption Index. Forefront subscribers can download the Index in full as a PDF, complete with beautiful designs and graphics by Danni Sinisi. Readers who make a $75 donation to Next City will have a full-color printed copy of the Index mailed to them.
Clean transportation means more than a Prius in your driveway. Spreading that message is the mission of CALSTART, the nation’s leading consortium of industry experts promoting clean energy transportation. Made up of more than 100 transportation parts manufacturers, large-scale fleet operations, government entities and energy specialists, CALSTART is trying to work within the industry to create the sort of systemic change that will allow cleaner transportation technologies to thrive in the marketplace.
When it comes down to sheer numbers, the collective trips we take to the store in our cars is a drop in the carbon bucket compared to the massive trucking fleets and port operations that hold together the country’s supply chain. Improvements to these industries — even minor part changes or engine efficiency increases — can have a wide-reaching impact on the environment. As CALSTART acknowledges, transportation is the major source of emissions that affect urban air quality. By convincing fellow industry members that cleaning up their operations can help their bottom line and the environment, CALSTART is forging a more environmentally friendly future for transportation in America.
Nate Berg is a writer and journalist covering cities, architecture and urban planning. Nate’s work has been published in a wide variety of publications, including the New York Times, NPR, Wired, Metropolis, Fast Company, Dwell, Architect, the Christian Science Monitor, LA Weekly and many others. He is a former staff writer at The Atlantic Cities and was previously an assistant editor at Planetizen.