Protect the ZEV mandate to safeguard public health

Today, Healthy Air Coalition members across health and environmental sectors have written to the Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander MP, urging the Government to resist calls to weaken the UK’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate and to recognise its important role in improving air quality and public health.

The letter highlights that while the ZEV Mandate is primarily designed to reduce carbon emissions, it is also one of the UK’s most important current policies for cutting harmful air pollution. Petrol and diesel vehicles remain the largest source of nitrogen oxide pollution in towns and cities and a significant source of harmful fine particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5). Weakening the mandate would slow the replacement of polluting vehicles with zero-emission alternatives, entrenching poor air quality and increasing pressure on the NHS and social care systems.

Our intervention is supported by new analysis conducted by WSP for Clean Air Fund and CBI Economics. This analysis examines four alternative options under consideration in the Department for Transport’s ZEV mandate consultation and compares them with current ZEV mandate projections.

The analysis found that weakening the mandate would increase emissions of harmful air pollutants between now and 2050. Under the most significant relaxation considered by the Department for Transport (Option 3), cumulative nitrogen oxide emissions would rise by 5.7% and PM2.5 emissions by 1.7% compared with the current mandate.

Those additional air pollution emissions would have real-world health consequences. The modelling estimates that Option 3 could result in an additional 12,075 life years lost, 6,801 quality-adjusted life years lost and 595 additional hospital admissions attributable to air pollution when compared with maintaining the current mandate.

The also found that that weakening the mandate could impose substantial additional health-related costs to the UK economy. Depending on the option chosen, the cumulative increase in air pollution damage costs between 2024 and 2050 ranges from £288 million to £882 million, with the largest costs arising under Option 3.

As the Government develops its approach to transport decarbonisation, the Healthy Air Coalition is calling on ministers to maintain the strength of the ZEV mandate and ensure transport policy contributes fully to cleaner air, healthier communities and reduced pressure on public services.

Read our letter to the Transport Secretary in full.

if you are concerned about the impact that watering down the ZEV mandate will have on air pollution and public health, make your voice heard by responding to the Government’s ZEV mandate consultation before it closes at 11.59pm on Friday 23 October 2026.