Mobility Matters Extra - The Net Zero Moonshot
Over the coming weeks, I will be sharing with you an idea that has been kicking around in my brain for some weeks now, essentially ever since COP26. It is based on a fundamental challenge. Transport must decarbonise and decarbonise quickly if we are to meet climate goals.
There are a lot of ideas and policy initiatives that tell us how to achieve Net Zero. The political angle is missing as I have set out previously, but another aspect of what is missing is bringing this together into a compelling vision, or a story of the future, that resonates.
We need a transport moonshot.
What is a moonshot?
To start with, and what will be the focus of this post, we need to define what a moonshot is, so that we are at least in the same frame of reference as each other. To which there is no agreed upon definition. You may not be shocked to hear that the term is inspired by President Kennedy’s bold ambition to send humans to the moon, delivered at the Rice Stadium in 1962.
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
To me, this is the best articulation of a vision I can think of. It contains elements of what constitutes a great vision.
It is clear. There is a clear end goal - to get to the moon by the end of the 1960s. There is little room for ambiguity here.
It is compelling. It draws people to it. It is something that feels like it is worth achieving, and worth all the time and effort to achieve it.
It balances ambition and achievability. This is hard to do. Everyone wants something that they consider to be realistic, but at the same time it needs to stretch what is achievable for it to have some power.
Transport has often spoken of vision and validate in recent years. This is an approach where you set your end vision for what you want to achieve, and that leads the way in terms of what you should achieve. The practice is often lacking in this regard, in that either the vision itself is far from compelling, or it is not ambitious at in the slightest, but that is a discussion for another day.
Moonshots are not visions, at least not on their own. In achieving the literal moonshot, NASA did not just have a compelling end vision or a series of technology roadmaps, it focussed on how it would align its resources, spending, the policy and regulatory environment, its partnerships, and its underlying knowledge and research base to achieve that goal.
That sounds strangely like strategy work, because it is (as transport people we don’t even do this well, but that is a subject for another day as well). But there is one other aspect of the moonshot approach that makes it stand out among other approaches to strategy and delivery. That is mindset.
We don’t have a funding problem. We have a mindset problem.
A trap that we often fall into is how we don’t have the funding in order to deliver solutions that will achieve Net Zero. If only we reallocated the roads budget to sustainable transport, or if only we were given more flexibility on how to spend our funding, then it would be no issue at all.
Let’s take that to its logical next step. Lets say next year we reallocated all of the road funding to cycling and walking. Now what? Well, of course we should just go and do it. But the world isn’t that simple. Engineers need retraining. Strategies need updating. Performance targets need reviewing. And importantly, everyone needs to buy into what we are trying to achieve.
Every strategy I have ever worked on that has told people to do things (“we are doing this now, so you must do it right now, no questions asked”) results in one of 3 outcomes. First, everyone takes ages to get started, has to learn on the fly, gets confused, frustrated, make a load of mistakes, and then somehow limp to the target eventually.
The second is that people just ignore it. Institutional muscle memory starts to flex, and what results is a token effort after getting shouted at a lot.
The third is a complete breakdown in communication and effort. People hate the strategy, the strategy writers hate the people not delivering, and both spend their time playing petty politics rather than actually delivering.
Remember, culture eats strategy for breakfast. What moonshots do is lead a cultural reset of those looking to make the change. So what if it is a completely mad goal? Because it is, we can now approach the challenge in a different way, and in a different style of thinking.
Moonshots wipe the slate clean. Even if you have an idea of the policies and projects that could achieve your stated vision, having a moonshot approach wipes the slate clean, and by doing that even the crazy ideas get a chance to be heard.
Let’s remove the techification
In recent years, Moonshot terminology has tended to be hijacked by, you guessed it, those working in technology. X (formerly Google X) is a very good example of this. The way that they visualise the moonshot is the intersection between a huge problem, a breakthrough technology, and a radical solution. Very much in the mindset of a technical and technological solution to the problem in hand.
Furthermore, the approach proposed by many such proponents is based a lot on the design-thinking approach that is often adopted. But this doesn’t mean that this approach is the only, or indeed the correct solution for the moonshot in hand.
I will say one thing about the approach typically undertaken in technology companies that we should maybe try doing much more of. Experimentation, and getting out in the field more. Try, fail, learn from it, try again. Keep doing that in the real world until you get it right. We should do much more of that.
Starting off the Net Zero moonshot by establishing our moon
I trust that this has given you somewhat of an idea as to what a moonshot is. Within the rest of this series - that will run until 19th December - I will set out my thoughts on what should constitute a transport moonshot. But first, we have to set what our moon is. And for this, I will adapt the words of President Kennedy himself.
We choose for how we get around to not pollute anymore. We choose to do that in this decade and do everything necessary, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Because we know how to do this. Because this goal will organise and measure the best of our energies, skills and technology. Because this challenge is one that we must accept, one we cannot postpone, and one which we will achieve. And our world will be the better for it.