Earth911 Podcast: Trek Bicycles Charts a Public Path to Sustainability

What this episode covers

Earth911 talks with Eric Bjorling, Trek Bicycles' Director of Brand Marketing and Public Relations. He explains the sustainability commitments and business transformation ideas it published in its 2021 sustainability report. We found it one of the clearest and easy-to-understand examples of corporate environmental reporting. That's because it is also being used as an internal learning tool to create awareness of the goals among Trek employees globally.Trek is “just getting started” on “moving fast and taking real action to reduce our environmental impact," and shared 10 useful ideas it is putting into place, ideas that any business can learn from. Eric discusses how Trek's decision to slash its reliance on air freight by 75% before 2024, consolidating its shipments to retail bike shops to reduce transportation impacts, and its growing use of renewable energy have affected its business. We also cover the carbon footprints of Trek's most advanced bike lines, the Madone road bike and Marlin mountain bikes, which point to the environmental improvements that can be achieved using advanced materials, as well as the challenge of recycling aluminum, carbon fiber and plastics for reuse in new products. He also explains how the company launched the Trek Foundation to encourage the building of bike trails and bicycle-friendly infrastructure to get more people out of cars and onto bikes.If you've heard companies will see decreased profitability when they adopt greener practices, Bjorling's explanations about the savings Trek realized by transitioning to use more renewable energy -- it will use 100% renewable power sources by 2023 -- will give you plenty of ammunition to make the case to try it at your workplace.

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