International Council on Clean Transportation

Background

The International Council on Clean Transportation is an environmentalist research organization that performs technical and scientific analyses and provides these results to environmental regulators to improve the environmental efficiency of global transportation methods. It performs analyses on road, marine, and air transportation systems to prevent global warming. ^{2  3}

The ICCT has offices in Beijing, Berlin, New Delhi, São Paulo, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. It has 185 staff members, ^{3  4} including engineers, chemists, biologists, physicists, economists, and policy advocates and is supported by several large foundations and governments, including the ClimateWorks Foundation, the European Climate Foundation, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Clean Air Fund, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. ⁵

The ICCT traces its roots to a 2001 meeting in Bellagio, Italy, where 18 government officials and environmentalist advocates from Europe, China, Japan, and the United States held discussions on “soaring transportation emissions and a lack of meaningful action from governments.” The participants drafted an initial set of guiding principles focused on addressing air pollution from vehicles and fuels. The ICCT became a formal, independent nonprofit organization in 2005 and since then has broadened its areas of concern to include new regions and transportation topics. ^{6  3}

The ICCT gained notoriety when it discovered excessive emissions in several Volkswagen diesel vehicles sold in the United States and reported these to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), starting the 2015 “Dieselgate” emissions-cheating scandal. It was discovered that Volkswagen had installed illegal “defeat devices” that detect when a vehicle is undergoing emissions testing and temporarily activate emissions controls. This resulted in multi-billion-dollar settlements to resolve Clean Air Act violations. ^{7  8}

Work Areas

The International Council on Clean Transportation contends that global carbon dioxide emissions must get to net zero by the 2050s in order to limit global warming. ¹

Its research focuses on identifying new technology and policy options on several types of transportation sectors, including heavy-duty vehicles, marine, aviation, offroad equipment, and passenger vehicles. It researches options for weather-dependent fuels and global freight systems and models the costs and benefits of policy options and their impacts on climate change and public health. The ICCT contributes its research results to governments and manufacturers. ^{2  3}

The ICCT has published hundreds of reports, market spotlights, and policy, market, and technical briefs. Several are annual or periodic documents, including the European Vehicle Market Statistics reference document, the Global Electric Vehicle Market Monitor, and the European Car Market Monitor. Its Vision 2050 paper and aligned reports propose policies and technologies to “decarbonize the global transport sector by mid-century.” ^{9  1}

In 2022, the ICCT hosted the first Transatlantic Transportation Decarbonization Summit, which has become an annual event. In 2023, it hosted the first annual India Clean Transportation Summit and co-hosted the first symposium on zero-emissions off-road equipment in China. ³ It continues to host conferences, workshops, and webinars. ¹⁰

Partnerships

The International Council on Clean Transportation established an international partnerships program in 2022. It collaborates on initiatives with several transportation-related decarbonization and clean-air organizations including Accelerating to Zero, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, the CRUX Alliance, the Global Fuel Economy Initiative, the Real Urban Emissions (TRUE) Initiative, TTG: Transport Task Group, the ZEV Alliance, and the ZEV Transition Council. ¹¹

The ICCT is identified as an initiative aligned with the Breakthrough Agenda, an international climate framework launched at the United Nations’ COP26 conference focused on accelerating decarbonization transitions across major sectors through collaboration. ¹²

Leadership

Drew Kodjak was the founding president and CEO of the International Council on Clean Transportation from 2005 until the end of 2025, when he stepped down. ¹³ Kodjak earned a law degree from Boston University and was an advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for over 5 years before co-founding the ICCT in 2005. He held several positions at nonprofit organizations before joining the EPA, including the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. ¹⁴

As of June 2026, Rachel Muncrief was the interim CEO of ICCT. Muncrief earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Tulane University in 2001 and did research for the University of Houston for over 10 years. She joined the ICCT in 2012 as its heavy-duty vehicle program lead and held several positions, including deputy director and acting executive director. She became its executive director in January 2025 and was selected as the interim CEO when Kodjak left the organization. ^{15  16}

As of June 2026, Anthony Eggert was the ICCT board chair and senior director of the ClimateWorks Foundation. Eggert earned a masters in transportation technology and policy from the University of California Davis and began his career at Ford Motor Company within the vehicle environmental engineering division. He held several environmental research, policy, and board positions before joining ClimateWorks. He was the founding director of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy, a senior advisor for the California Air Resources Board, a commissioner of the California Energy Commission, and the deputy secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. He was involved in the implementation of California’s clean-air and climate policies. He participated in the technical review panel of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was a board commissioner for the Alliance to Save Energy, and a board member for GridWorks. He joined the ClimateWorks Foundation as a senior director in 2015. ^{17  18}