Sustainable Transport in a Geopolitical World: Asia, Canada, and the Nordics

This piece is part of our 2026 Trends series. You can read the first article on the macro shifts shaping decarbonisation here.

Asia Focus: Scaling Urban Electrification and Clean Fuel Investment

In 2026, China remains the volume engine for EVs, but the bar is rising. New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) continue to be central to China’s decarbonisation strategy, with fiscal support now tied to efficiency and real EV capability rather than just engineering innovation. This shift requires the entire supply chain to meet higher standards of performance.

More broadly across Asia, clean fuels such as SAF and low-carbon marine fuels are becoming increasingly viable, driven by a regulatory push rooted in industrial policy and sovereignty. This is particularly visible in Singapore, a central maritime hub for Southeast Asia and one of the world’s largest bunkering and shipping centres, where SAF levies and early fuel standards send demand signals well beyond its domestic market.

“Singapore’s SAF levy is a concrete demand signal, and shipping is moving toward global rules that combine fuel standards & emissions pricing.” — Sébastien Guillaud, Managing Partner at Shift4Good

Meanwhile, urban electrification is scaling across cities in India and Southeast Asia, driven by urgent air quality and congestion issues. E-buses, depot charging, and B2B mobility solutions are being rapidly adopted as political pressures for cleaner urban environments grow.

Scaling sustainable mobility in Asia however, isn’t without challenges. Trade and localisation risks are becoming more pronounced, particularly with tensions between China and the EU, creating uncertainty around pricing, margins, and the potential for cross-border scaling. Scaling clean fuels remains constrained by challenges related to feedstock availability, certification processes, and cost efficiency. Grid capacity and permitting remain significant bottlenecks across the region. Even though the demand for clean tech is growing and the technology is ready, delays in upgrading grids and unclear cost-sharing structures significantly stall progress.

Nordics Focus: Export-Driven Innovation and Energy-Backed Scaling

In 2026, as energy resilience, sovereignty, and industrial execution become first-order drivers of what scales, the Nordics stand out as a compact but highly potent innovation region for sustainable transportation and energy. Nordic countries are remarkably innovative and have a developed venture capital environment, with strong startup density, a high concentration of impact-focused capital, and the advantage of hosting multiple multinational HQs, which can open global markets “from home.” Combined with a largely clean and stable power system (hydro, nuclear, wind), the Nordics offer a credible environment to build and validate solutions where energy performance and operational reality matter.

The constraint is also the filter: domestic markets are small, so purely local plays with no path to internationalisation are hard to scale and typically not venture-backable. But this is precisely why most Nordic startups are export-driven by default, supported by an efficient and collaborative ecosystem. In practice, that means Nordic innovation travel well, particularly across energy and transportation: clean power strengthens the case for electrification and other energy-intensive models, while shipping and marine engineering roots keep the region strong in maritime climate tech. Looking into 2026, we expect this to translate into a growing pipeline of scalable solutions, especially in maritime decarbonisation themes like fuel switching (including methanol and biofuels), electrification, and on-board carbon capture.

“Because domestic markets are small, Nordic founders think internationally by default. That constraint creates companies with scalable models and a strong bias toward real-world deployment rather than local optimisation.” - Magnus Lundin, Venture Partner at Shift4Good

Canada Focus: Grid-Mobility Integration and Regional Strengths

In 2026, Canada is emerging as a key player in sustainable mobility—not by sheer market size, but by proving how clean transport and grid innovation can scale together.

Provinces like Québec, Ontario, and Alberta are leading the charge, where access to clean power, critical minerals, and industrial land overlaps with supportive policy.

At the operational level, Canadian fleets are embedding data, energy management, and smart charging into their core systems—turning analytics into infrastructure. This reflects Canada’s broader strength in applied AI, which is increasingly deployed across fleet, grid, and mobility applications.

On the capital side, investment is shifting toward fewer, more bankable projects, with greater pressure on teams to prove execution and commercial traction early.

But challenges remain. Fragmented electricity systems, permitting bottlenecks, and interprovincial policy gaps continue to slow momentum.

What stands out is Canada’s region-led model, where local ecosystems take the lead and where Indigenous equity participation is becoming essential to delivering durable, large-scale infrastructure.

Collaboration Focus: Circularity, Interoperability, and Scale

Across all regions, geopolitical realignment is pushing alliances to be more strategic - emphasizing shared industrial values, regulatory trust, and joint capacity-building for the climate transition.

Europe, Canada, and parts of Asia—particularly Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea—are converging around common goals, but from different strengths. Europe leads in regulation and circularity; Canada contributes resource security, AI-driven fleet innovation, and stable governance; and Asia brings manufacturing scale and fast execution, especially in electrification and clean fuels.

Concrete opportunities include battery circularity, where Canada and key Asian players are aligning with European traceability standards; hydrogen certification and SAF, where transatlantic and intra-Asian pilots are building interoperability; and fleet electrification and analytics, where early partnerships are emerging around data governance and platform integration.

Within Europe, Nordic countries continue to act as launchpads—particularly in maritime tech, hydrogen deployment, and grid flexibility—translating technical leadership into scalable platforms.

In a world of diverging systems, these trusted industrial ecosystems offer a blueprint for climate progress without fragmentation.