Richard Bruce

Director of Transport Decarbonisation at Department for Transport (DfT)

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Director of Transport Decarbonisation, Department for Transport

Richard has been Director of Transport Decarbonisation at the UK’s Department for Transport, jointly with Caroline Low, since December 2021. They lead on policy to move the nation’s transport onto a more sustainable footing, delivering the UK’s 2021 Transport Decarbonisation Plan and maximising the economic opportunities from the zero emission transition.

Richard and Caroline’s teams direct and deliver UK-wide policies worth around £2bn with a particular focus on road transport. These include the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) and their Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund and Rapid Charging Fund (RCF) as well as delivering the UK’s flagship ZEV Mandate and programmes to migrate all road vehicles to zero emissions. Other programmes include the Zero Emission Road Freight Trials for HGVs, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation helping to cut carbon from the existing vehicle fleet, the £165m Advanced Fuels Fund and work to deliver a UK Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Mandate. They also coordinate all the wider work to decarbonise the UK’s transport system including in the aviation, maritime, bus and rail sectors.

Prior to this role Richard was Director of Environment and Future Mobility in from 2016 and prior to that spent four years as head of the UK’s Office of Low Emissions Vehicles (OLEV), delivering Government support for the early market for ultra-low emission vehicles and overseeing a period of unprecedented growth in plug-in vehicle uptake. Richard has also held various roles in the UK Senior Civil Service including DfT's head of Corporate Governance, leading on smart and integrated ticketing; and as Director of Regional Resilience.

Before joining the civil service he worked at Unilever and Accenture. Richard has BA in Industrial Economics and MPhil on the economics of motor vehicle pollution from the University Of Nottingham. Richard is married with two children and lives in London. He gets around by bicycle, EV and campervan.