Climate Neutral Today, Climate Positive Tomorrow
Micromobility has improved by miles since the early days, especially when it comes to environmental sustainability. Vehicles with extremely short lifespans and high-emission operations posed an existential threat to the industry. Fortunately, increased public pressure on companies to improve their operations and purchase offsets have somewhat mitigated these issues. Superpedestrian took a different approach from the start: we designed our LINK vehicles and operations to be sustainable from the get-go, with robust engineering and Vehicle Intelligence that keep our scooters rolling for much longer. While this kind of thoughtful design reduces our footprint, it can not fully eliminate it. That is why Superpedestrian is thrilled to be joining many of our peers as a carbon neutral company, certified by Climate Neutral.
What does “carbon neutral” actually mean? Also known as “net zero,” carbon neutrality means having an equal balance between the carbon we emit and the carbon we absorb from the atmosphere. Superpedestrian worked with Climate Neutral, to achieve this goal. Their rigorous certification process entailed:
- Measuring our entire carbon footprint, accounting for everything from manufacturing to fleet operations.
- Offsetting 100% of our footprint with high-quality carbon offsets. This year, we supported four projects focused on diversifying local economies to conserve forest ecosystems in Papua New Guinea, Peru, and Colombia. Each project is independently verified, ensuring they are effectively protecting our climate.
- Reducing future emissions via reduction commitments, including implementing an ongoing work-from-home policy to reduce emissions from employee commuting, switching our office to 100% clean energy, and creating a rebate program for employees to do the same in their homes.
We are proud to be Climate Neutral, but we know this is just the first step. Next up: becoming Climate Positive. That is, averting more carbon emissions than we produce. Carbon emissions are averted when micromobility trips replace car trips — this is known as “mode shift.” Mode shift is often climate positive because micromobility modes, including shared e-scooters and e-bikes are less polluting than cars — even electric ones. Most car trips are short, and could easily be replaced with micromobility if safe, affordable, reliable micromobility options were available. The shift away from cars is slowly beginning to happen, but is primarily confined to dense urban areas already served by functional transit systems — think Paris or New York City.
At Superpedestrian, we aren’t content to stop at Climate Positive — we want to go Climate Superpositive by replacing car trips on a grand scale. In line with President Biden’s infrastructure plan, our vision is to completely transform transportation by making clean, safe and affordable transit and micromobility options ubiquitous for all city residents — in the U.S. and around the globe. Replacing car trips in dense urban areas is easy — making the shift away from cars a more global phenomenon is where the hard work begins. Large-scale mode shift will require a scooter and service that is viable in lower-density areas, less affluent neighborhoods, and smaller cities. This is where we come in.
Superpedestrian’s proprietary technologies make us uniquely suited to tackle the mode shift challenge in diverse locations. Our self-protecting and self-reporting Vehicle Intelligent Safety System, along with our operational expertise, allow Superpedestrian to operate our LINK scooters profitably and sustainably in cities and neighborhoods other operators shun, where transit is less accessible and cars generally dominate.
As we expand our global presence, Superpedestrian will continue efforts to reduce our carbon impact while expanding opportunities for mode shift. We are thrilled to be able to serve a wide variety of cities, including small and medium-sized cities such as Hartford, CT and Jacksonville, FL, where averting car trips is key to the success of our journey to Climate Superpositivity.
