Public consultation period for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) eligibility criteria ends next week. Last chance to get your comments in!

The published BRT criteria proposed by the Low Carbon Transport Technical Working Group will end its 30 day period of public consultation Monday 14th of July – so hurry and send us your feedback in the comments box below or at standards@climatebonds.net!

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems is the first set of eligibility criteria to go out for public comment by the Low Carbon Transport Working Group. Next in line for public comment are eligibility criteria for Rail and Electric Vehicles (EVs) - expected at the end of this month. 

For those of you unfamiliar with BRTs, they're mass transit systems that use low cost buses (often hybrid or electric) in dedicated bus corridors, complete with metro-style passenger stations. Developed originally in Curitiba in Brazil, they're flexible, relatively fast to implement and vastly more affordable to other modes.

But not all BRT systems can be classified as such. To ensure bonds linked to BRT systems bring genuine environmental benefits to the transport system, the Working Group has proposed the use of an existing ratings system, the BRT Standard (link is external), as developed by the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (link is external).  Any BRT project meeting Bronze, Silver, or Gold Standard under the BRT Standard will be eligible for certification under the Climate Bonds Standards.

At the end of public consultation, the criteria will be submitted to the Climate Bond Standards Board for confirmation. Board members are CalSTRS (link is external), the (US) Investor Network on Climate Risk (link is external), the (EU) Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (link is external), the (Australian) Investor Group on Climate Change (link is external), NRDC (link is external), CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project (link is external)), and the State Treasurer of California, Bill Lockyer (link is external).

Members of the Low-Carbon Transport Technical Working Group are:

  • Heather Allen, Transport Research Laboratory, London
  • Lewis Fulton, University of California’s Davis Institute of Transportation Studies
  • Michael Replogle, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (link is external), Washington DC
  • Gary Hoffman, rail planning consultant, GM Hoffman Consulting, Washington D.C.
  • Elizabeth Deakin, University of California’s Berkeley Institute for Environment Design (link is external)
  • Karl-Josef Kuhn, Siemens, Munich
  • Rupert Faussett, Green Cities program, Forum for the Future, London
  • Cornie Huizenga, SLoCaT – partnership for sustainable low carbon transport, Shanghai
  • Benoit Lefevre, World Resources Institute, Washington DC
  • Arie Bleijenberg, TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Delft
  • Nina Renshaw, Transport & Environment, Brussels
  • He Dongquan, China Sustainable Transportation Centre (link is external), China Energy Foundation, Beijing
  • Danang Parikesit is a leading transportation expert in Asia, President of the Indonesian Transport Society, Professor of Transportation at Universitas Gadjah Mada and a transport policy advisor to the Indonesian Government.
  • Carol Lee Rawn is Director of the Transportation Program at Ceres, a Boston-based NGO.

The criteria is available on the website, www.climatebonds.net/standards

The Climate Bond Standard is a screening tool for investors and governments to support investment in delivering a Low Carbon Economy. Bonds complying with the Standard will be certified as ‘Climate Bonds’, a mark that assures their contribution to the delivery of a Low Carbon Economy