Transport decarbonisation learning made accessible

CIHT provides route for transport professionals to fulfil decarbonisation goals

The Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) has launched an approach to learning about transport decarbonisation designed to provide highways and transportation professionals with a structured continuing professional development (CPD) framework to fulfil climate action related goals.

CIHT is a membership organisation representing over 14,000 people who work in the highways and transportation sector.

CPD is a way to ensure professionals skills and knowledge remain up to date throughout their career and they can address the challenges facing the sector. All industry professionals can also access a range of support from the CIHT Learn platform including an introductory course on Transport Decarbonisation.

The CIHT Transport Decarbonisation Pathway provides a high-level summary of transport decarbonisation topics and is designed to help users identify personal CPD objectives and turn them into an action plan. The framework is separated into two parts:

• Climate Change: Fundamentals for Transportation Professionals – giving users a basic introduction to the knowledge, vocabulary and terminology needed to collaborate effectively with colleagues to deliver decarbonisation
• Transport Decarbonisation: Key Skills and Knowledge - developing the skills and knowledge relevant to specific job roles to help reduce or eliminate transport related carbon emissions through a user’s daily work.

Sue Percy CBE, chief executive of CIHT, said: “Transport is one of the largest sources of global Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. GHGs are a basket of gases responsible for climate change, of which Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is the one of the most significant. In this guidance, transport decarbonisation is used as a shorthand for action taken to eliminate or reduce the GHGs emissions associated with transport.

“This framework will support users in adapting to the technical challenge of decarbonisation and will introduce new ways to design, build, maintain, adapt and decommission transport infrastructure more effectively.

“Decarbonisation is not just a technical challenge. As a profession we need to secure and maintain public and political support for change, this framework can provide a role in convincing people that the costs and benefits are being shared fairly across society.

“This is a CIHT member benefit and our latest continuing professional development guidance includes an expectation that from 2023 all our members should focus some of their annual CPD effort on developing the skills and knowledge they need to play their role in the decarbonisation of highways and transportation.