Shift Cycling Culture began discussing how companies in the cycling industry could reduce their carbon emissions in 2021. The discussions led to the Climate Commitment letter, with more than 80 cycling companies pledging to reduce their CO2 emissions by 55 per cent by 2030.
Released this week, the 2024 Climate Action Pulse Check, a survey conducted by Shift Cycling Culture, provides insight into how the industry – including the original signatories and other companies – is faring at reducing its climate impact.
Set to be an annual report, the survey also shows opinions are divided on how committed the sector is to climate action among professionals and consumers, alongside changes in product development and targets moving forward.
Consumers are less optimistic
The survey reveals 80 per cent of industry representatives report their companies are taking a strategic approach to climate action, with 35 per cent having made considerable progress and being able to track the changes they've made.
Generally, staff members tend to be more optimistic than top management about climate commitments, which Shift Cycling Culture suggests could be due to the “bottom-up approach on sustainability, where driving positive change starts with employees”.
Despite this, Sandra Brandt, executive director of Shift Cycling Culture, a not-for-profit that drives climate action in cycling, says it's impressive how far the industry has come in the three years since the Climate Commitment letter.
“We didn't see companies taking responsibility for their environmental impacts and acting on climate change,” she says, adding that it’s “a huge success that we can get these results”.
However, the industry’s efforts may be falling short of consumer expectations. The report highlights that industry representatives are more optimistic about their sustainability efforts than consumers. 60 per cent of the industry surveyed said they felt positive and only 24 per cent of consumers feel the same way.
Even more damning, the report says cycling consumers don’t agree that climate action seems like a high priority for the industry, but think it should be.
“The companies are not communicating that much about their efforts yet. So maybe also consumers are just not aware of what is going on within the industry,” Brandt speculates.
“Another interesting result that could also help to try and explain this gap in optimism is that when we asked the cyclist what is most important to you, then it came back to repairability, ‘comfortability’, those kinds of things.”
Brandt says this ‘gap in optimism’ could also be due to what consumers value, which often differs from the familiar tale of watt-saving product innovation: “It's not about having the latest [and] greatest for the cyclists, it's often just about ‘I want to ride my bike as long as possible and wear my favourite gear as long as possible. So give me options to repair what I have’.”
The survey also found 77 per cent of consumer respondents have switched brands because of sustainability. 98 per cent of the 240 surveyed consumers said longevity and durability were important, 95 per cent said repairability and compatibility were important, while only 65 per cent said climate advocacy was important.
“Many companies are still not talking much about what they're doing,” says Brandt, explaining that part of the reason is a question of what should be communicated.
In 2023, the European Commission introduced the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) to bring transparency to sustainability efforts. This means larger companies in cycling will have to publish a sustainability report.
“It's definitely caused a lot of question marks or concerns with companies,” Brandt says. The legislation means companies have to make sure most of the things they say and the terms they use are science-based and backed with real data, but that isn’t the most translatable message.
Great progress
Even if sustainability efforts are not being communicated effectively, Brandt says Shift Cycling Culture sees brands “making great progress”.
One area is product development, where brands have begun integrating sustainability into their designs. In two case studies, the Climate Action Pulse Check highlights Brompton’s use of recycled aluminium and Vittoria’s Terreno Pro T60 gravel bike tyre that uses 92 per cent renewable and recycled content.
However, Brandt says Shift Cycling Culture wants sustainability to be embedded throughout organisations, which requires everyone to be on board.
“Quite often what we see is that a lot of employees have great ideas but don’t actually know how they can contribute,” says Brandt.
Apidura is one brand that is getting everyone on board, according to the survey. The B Corp bikepacking bag company has rolled out carbon literacy training for its team. Apidura says this gives “each team member the opportunity to help positive change at a company-wide cultural level, as well as in their personal lives.”
Brandt says some companies are taking the lead on sustainability and beginning to work together. “Companies who are advanced in their climate journey now focus on the topic of collaboration and how can they actually come together to tackle some of their biggest challenges together, which is great to see,” she says.
Brandt says Canyon has initiated climate action training, which involved seven other brands – including Scott, Trek and Schwalbe – and focused on reducing emissions in the brands’ supply chains.
Based on the feedback of 84 industry professionals, the Climate Action Pulse Check says engaging the supply chain is being seen as the number one enabled to scale climate action across the industry. This isn’t so surprising when, according to Shift Cycling Culture, 95 per cent of a cycling company’s carbon emissions result from extraction and producing bikes and components.
The climate action training aims to equip companies with the skills to engage with suppliers to ask for energy and carbon emission data, which will help them with their CSRD obligations.
But Brandt says the process is more of a stepping stone for Shift Cycling Culture “so that companies team up with their suppliers and understand, ‘OK, what are the things that we can do to help you as well to move forward with your climate agenda?’.”
She says companies often share suppliers, so by teaming up, the cycling industry can work to drive down emissions at particular production sites.
Accelerating climate action
Shift Cycling Culture says the Climate Action Pulse Check results are inspiring and uplifting but reveal that “so much more needs to be done”.
This doesn’t just relate to tackling supply-chain issues or improving employee education. Brandt says that despite many companies engaging with climate issues, the survey also revealed that some don’t have any support from the board level at all.
“We still see a role for us to play [in getting] more leadership on board, because we still think this or see that this is also missing in many cases or with some companies,” she says.
Reflecting on the Climate Action Pulse Check, Brandt says: “We appreciate it's a small slice of the industry… but we hope that everyone reading this Pulse Check will not only find it insightful but also recognise its power to accelerate climate action across the industry.”
Maybe it will go some way to changing consumers’ perceptions, too.
