BETWEEN RHETORIC AND REALITY: DISCURSIVE FRAMINGS, GREENWASHING AND OUTCOMES IN SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY

Sustainable mobility has emerged as a central strategy for addressing environmental challenges and rethinking urban movement. While technological innovation and infrastructure development are often presented as key drivers of this transition, their effectiveness is deeply conditioned by social, cultural, and political factors. This paper argues that an overreliance on moralized narratives of technological optimism can function as a form of discursive greenwashing, obscuring structural shortcomings and, in some cases, undermining the very goals of sustainable mobility. Drawing on critical social theory, the paper examines how ethical framings of “responsible mobility” shape subjectivities, public acceptance, and patterns of inclusion and exclusion, while also influencing which solutions are politically promoted, funded, and legitimized. The analysis is grounded in five comparative case studies. Three highly visible initiatives explicitly marketed as sustainable mobility solutions: SolaRoad (solar cycling infrastructure), hydrogen-powered urban bus fleets, and shared e-scooter systems are examined as cases in which strong symbolic and discursive appeal masked weak environmental performance, limited scalability, infrastructural unpreparedness, or problematic social outcomes. In contrast, two cases not originally framed as sustainability projects: the pedestrian-oriented transformation of Pontevedra and the long-term, organic development of cycling culture in Copenhagen demonstrate how substantial reductions in car dependency and emissions can emerge from structural, spatial, and institutional conditions rather than from moralized behavioral appeals or technological spectacle. Rather than rejecting ethical or cultural framings altogether, the paper highlights the risks of sustainability narratives that operate independently of material infrastructures, governance capacity, and everyday mobility practices. By contrasting projects that succeeded rhetorically but failed empirically with those that succeeded empirically without sustainability branding, the paper exposes a recurring gap between discourse and outcomes that challenges the credibility of contemporary sustainable mobility policies. By addressing the tensions between normative sustainability goals and lived mobility realities, this paper proposes a more reflexive approach to sustainable mobility that shifts emphasis from individualized moral responsibility and symbolic innovation toward structural change, institutional accountability, and socially embedded practices. This perspective contributes to current debates on greenwashing, infrastructure readiness, and the legitimacy of sustainability transitions in urban mobility.