We Need To Talk About Cycling And Sustainability

Compostable bags are an excellent first step, but we should be asking for changes to bike production, Michelle Arthurs-Brennan hears

- Michelle Arthurs-Brennan

Sustainability is taking up more space in the psyche of most consumers, but you wouldn’t be alone if setting a goal of ‘be more sustainable’ felt paralysingly equivalent to climbing an unstable mountain made from your own annual disposable coffee cup waste output.

Thankfully, none of us have to be environmentally angelic to make a difference.

“Don’t be afraid not to be living the perfect life. As long as you are taking steps and looking at where your impact lies, that’s what matters,” reassures founder and director at Shift Cycling Culture, Lian van Leeuwen.

What steps would be the most effective to take? Dissecting and altering the habits of generations is no easy task, but we asked Van Leeuwen – one of the three directors behind the non-profit sustainability organisation currently working with household names such as Specialized, Rapha and Muc-Off – to give it a go.

Measure your impact

If you don’t know about ‘SMART’ goals, where have you been whilst the rest of us have been striving for anagram-based self-improvement? SMART goals are: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time related.

Homing in on the ‘M’, Van Leeuwen notes: “Look into where your impact lies, it might be flying to events overseas, it might be nutrition, it might be the amount of product you buy; there are a lot of tools for that to help you keep track.”

Shift’s website lists several apps, such as the United Nations Environmental App ‘Capture’ and The Nature Conservancy Calculator.