Lime pledged on Tuesday to make its entire fleet of electric bikes and scooters completely “carbon free.” The San Francisco-based company said it will purchase renewable energy credits from new and existing projects to ensure all of its dock-free bikes and scooters are carbon neutral. It is part of a new sustainability effort the company is calling “Lime Green.”
Lime said it’s partnering with NativeEnergy, a firm that provides carbon offset and renewable energy credit services. Lime said it will help fund climate-friendly projects to displace the emissions from company operations, including the fossil fuels used by fleet management vehicles. These projects include an Iowa solar project and buying power from the Capricorn Ridge, an existing wind farm in Texas, in order to “green our fleet in Austin, Dallas and San Antonio,” Lime said.
Lime relies on a loose network of freelancers (called “juicers”) to collect and charge its bikes and scooters each night. Many use their own vehicles — minivans, SUVs, and trucks, mostly — in order to “harvest” as many devices as possible. (Juicers earn a fee for each device charged, based on how challenging it is to find the bike or scooter.)
A spokesperson said the company plans to account for the electricity used by juicers to charge its bikes and scooters, but not for the vehicles used to pick up and drop off the devices. Lime hopes to cover these emissions sometime in the future. Lime isn’t disclosing the amount of money it is budgeting for this entire project, but it won’t effect the price for consumers. Lime’s scooters cost $1 to unlock, and then 15 cents for each minute of riding. The company was recently valued at $1 billion after a big investment by Uber in a financing round led by Alphabet’s venture arm, GV.
