E-scooter – convenience versus environment: a green innovation value chain analysis of transportation in urban areas

Abstract

Abstract The need for more sustainable transport methods have been highlighted due to challenges such as traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution in urban areas. The shared electric scooters have become increasingly popular and have been promoted as a solution to the mentioned problems. However, this type of micromobility has been prone to criticism and the demand for stricter regulations has intensified. This master thesis applies the Green Innovation Value Chain (GIVC) as a framework for analyzing the environmental and financial performance across the links of five stakeholder: manufacturer, distributor, customer, government and environment. In this case, the shared e-scooters are compared with the more conventional alternative, public transit. From the results, we conclude that public transit is more attractive, both financially and environmentally, than e-scooters. Especially for the governments and the customers, as well as the environment, e-scooter proves to not be comparable with public transit. Keywords: green innovation value chain; e-scooters; shared micromobility; public transit