Collaboration & Co-Creation Circular Economy

100 US Companies, Investors Throw Weight Behind Transportation and Climate Initiative

A diverse group of investors, companies and organizations across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic US are urging the region’s governors to adopt the TCI — what they’re calling a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity.’

Published 4 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Image: Ceres

The group of over 100 investors, companies, trade associations, institutions and organizations across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region are banding together to urge lawmakers to support the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), which aims to create a clean transportation future that enables economic growth.

TCI is a regional collaboration of 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia —and the District of Columbia that seeks to improve transportation, develop the clean energy economy and reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector. The initiative is supported by Ceres, Healthcare Without Harm and the NRDC, to name a few.

TCI is a carbon-pricing system focused on reducing pollution from the transportation sector. In letters sent to the participating leaders, the cross-sector coalition of signatories — including Akamai, Ben & Jerry’s, Diageo, DSM, EILEEN FISHER, Etsy, Eversource Energy, Lime, The Nature Conservancy, Novartis, State Street, Trillium Asset Management and Unilever — called the initiative a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize and decarbonize our region’s transportation system.”

As the group outlines in the letter:

"The existing transportation system has a chokehold on our economy and our climate goals. We feel an urgency to create a transportation future that enables economic growth and substantial decarbonization.

"We believe that the policy created through TCI will achieve several of our shared goals concurrently: mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from transportation; where applicable help meet binding carbon-reduction goals; invest in much-needed public transit, alternative transportation and road infrastructure; make the region more economically competitive; alleviate congestion; provide benefits for rural communities; and generate a revenue stream to fund these and future transportation improvements."

The group’s call to action comes as the 12 jurisdictions that are collaborating through TCI work to finalize a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlining a market-based policy to create a clean, equitable and efficient transportation system for the region. The final MOU is expected later this spring.

Read more about TCI and the supporters rallying behind it here.