Possibilities and pathways to long-haul freight decarbonisation
India’s freight system stands at a decisive moment. Long-haul trucking continues to drive emissions and air pollution, while rail offers a powerful but underleveraged pathway for decarbonisation. Treating these modes in isolation will not deliver the scale or speed of change required.
This roundtable at Delhi Climate Innovation Week brings together policymakers, practitioners, researchers, industry leaders and financiers to examine how clean trucking and low-carbon rail can be planned as one integrated system rather than parallel solutions.
Co-convened by Purpose and Riding Sunbeams, the session will explore where technology readiness, policy design and investment strategy intersect across road and rail freight, with a focus on practical pathways that can deliver measurable emissions reduction within the next five years along priority freight corridors.
Riding Sunbeams is a UK-based social enterprise working at the intersection of rail and metro infrastructure and renewable energy, exploring how rail corridors and metro networks in urban India can become sites of clean energy generation and climate action. Purpose is a global social impact agency that works with organisations and movements to shift systems, narratives and public engagement on critical challenges.
Designed as a high-trust, practitioner-led dialogue, the roundtable will prioritise short provocations and facilitated discussion. The aim is to surface points of convergence, identify real constraints, and clarify where collaboration, research or strategic action could genuinely accelerate freight decarbonisation in India.
This is a working conversation for those shaping policy, finance, technology and implementation across India’s freight ecosystem, and for anyone interested in how infrastructure transitions happen when ambition meets reality.
A list of speakers will be shared closer to 20 February.
Themes the discussion will explore
How zero-emission trucking and rail decarbonisation can be coordinated to avoid siloed planning and fragmented outcomes
The state of readiness across rail electrification, solar powered rail traction and heavy-duty vehicle transitions
Policy and regulatory measures that can accelerate modal shift, reduce emissions and improve air quality
Investment pathways that enable system level change rather than isolated pilots
Flow of conversations at the roundtable (and beyond)
10:00 am: Registrations, tea and coffee
10:30 am: Welcome and context setting on coordinated rail and road freight decarbonisation
11:00 am: Participant introductions and overview of the roundtable format
11:20 am: Theme 1 discussion on policy and regulatory measures
11:50 am: Theme 2 discussion on technology and innovation readiness
12:20 pm: Theme 3 discussion on investment pathways at corridor and network scale
12:50 pm: Open dialogue and reflections from the room
1:10 pm: Summary, next steps and approaches to collaborate beyond the roundtable
1:30 pm onwards: Lunch and informal conversation.