In an age of growing climate uncertainty, Bolt, the on-demand transportation platform, is making the move towards carbon neutral travel. The company recently announced that journeys taken using its platform in Europe will be carbon neutral by offsetting emissions from 2020. This plan makes Bolt the largest ride-hailing platform in Europe to attempt carbon neutrality.
As part of its environmental strategy, called ‘Green Plan’, Bolt is making a number of commitments. With €10m investment up to 2025, Bolt will offset its contribution to the European transportation sector’s carbon dioxide emissions by at least five million tonnes.
From 2020, Bolt will be offering its customers more ‘green’ ride-types on its platform in Europe and will offset the global emissions from its offices.
Markus Villig, CEO and founder of Bolt said: “The facts show climate change is real and greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest cause of it. Today, road transportation makes up about 20% of Europe’s total greenhouse gas emissions. As Bolt is a part of that ecosystem, we need to hold ourselves responsible for being part of the solution.”
“We are working to accelerate the shift to shared and efficiently-used vehicles – electric cars, bikes, scooters and other types of vehicles that are yet to be invented. But we need to face the reality that our current transition is not fast enough. While we look to reduce emissions by adding more shared and electric vehicles to our fleets across cities, carbon offsetting takes immediate action to reduce emissions today and acts as a driver across the company to speed up the transition.”
Bolt will be working with Natural Capital Partners to deliver its carbon neutrality. Natural Capital Partners provides businesses all across the world with high quality and transparent carbon-neutral action for their business.
Jonathan Shopley, Managing Director, External Affairs at Natural Capital Partners said: “Carbon neutral action is increasingly important across all sectors to rapidly deliver the emissions reductions required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. We are delighted to work with such a disruptive company which is making this commitment to an immediate, positive impact on our climate.”
