Using Electric School Buses Nationally Could Provide $1.6 Billion in Health and Climate Benefits Each Year

New research from WRI’s Electric School Bus Initiative and Carleton University shows that the U.S. would see an estimated $1.6 billion in societal benefits every year by using electric school buses. 

This estimate accounts for the cost to society of using diesel-burning school buses compared to using electric school buses, measured by two metrics: health impacts and climate effects. By comparing these costs at the local level, the data provides annual societal benefit figures in dollar terms for every county in the contiguous United States.

According to this research, people in every state analyzed would experience positive benefits from using electric school buses. Those benefits would be most pronounced in counties operating the oldest diesel-burning school buses—often in communities with higher proportions of people of color—and in counties with larger populations.

This research is among the first to model and quantify the county-level health and climate impacts of using electric school buses instead of aging diesel-burning school buses.