ABSTRACT

This chapter introduces the background to the book Sustainability and the Automobile Industry in Asia: Policy and Governance. It emphasizes the main themes and objectives of this volume: the sustainable automobile future, we propose, can be achieved only through the development and implementation of policies and strategies with a clear understanding of the points of intervention, within a coherent and transparent governance framework. By highlighting the key concepts behind sustainability and transport, this book evaluates to what extent social and technological responses to atmospheric and climate change are emerging in the Asian context. It draws on evidence of how the nexus of transport governance, involving political, industrial and technological factors, is developing. Based on empirical case studies in selected Asian countries, it provides lessons as to how future policy directions may be put in place to further materialize sustainable transport.