Sustainability and environment

image sustainability Cyclelife436 Lo Res

Riding a bike is great for the environment

Taking the bike instead of a car cuts carbon emissions, improves local air quality, and makes our streets more pleasant and quieter.

For employers, supporting your people and visitors who want to get about by bike is a powerful message that you take your social and environmental responsibilities seriously. Providing fleet bikes or e-bikes for your people to use for local business travel, instead of using a car or taxi, helps to cut your organisation’s carbon footprint.

For many organisations, transport is typically one of the largest sources of carbon emissions. Encouraging getting by bike about should be included in any organisation’s carbon reduction initiatives.

Facts and figures

Here are a few facts and figures from recent research to back this up:

The New Zealand (University of Auckland) study from 2010 estimated the effects of shifting 5% of all short vehicle-based urban trips to cycling. It found that this would reduce vehicle travel by approximately 223 million kilometres each year, save about 22 million litres of fuel and reduce transport-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by about 54,000 tonnes. Those GHG reductions are the equivalent of taking 18,000 cars permanently off the road.
The same study also found that the 5% shift to cycling would reduce the health-damaging air pollutants - carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide (NOx), and particulates (PM10) – by 1,449 tonnes, 161 tonnes, and 12.3 tonnes, respectively.