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The popular connected fitness app Strava recently announced a new tool that focuses on carbon savings. Users who tag their activities as commutes on the Strava mobile app and on the web can see their estimated carbon savings when commuting by running, walking, cycling, or e-biking instead of traveling by car.
This new feature aims to help advance carbon savings and encourage more environmentally friendly modes of transportation. A recent study revealed that 72% of companies have mandated office returns, and commuting by bike and foot around the world has been further influenced by the global fuel and cost of living crisis. Through the update, which displays the carbon saved figure on user activities labeled as “commute,” Strava hopes to influence more of its global community of over 100 million users to choose less carbon-intensive means of commuting.
“At Strava, we are proud to consistently provide our community with product features and updates that motivate them to be more active. The new feature unlocks a universal action that anyone on Strava can be part of, and our hope is that when armed with the power to choose between a less eco-friendly form of commuting versus a more human-powered approach – they bias towards the more sustainable option. By providing more visibility on carbon savings, we look to inspire individual action towards a common goal of reducing carbon emissions globally,” said Brian Bell, Strava’s Vice President of Global Communications and Social Impact.
The new feature supports Strava’s ongoing efforts to improve infrastructure investment for greater active transportation access. Since 2020, Strava has been providing de-identified, aggregated, activity data insights on commuting trends for free to city planners, advocacy groups and researchers via Metro, a Strava proprietary web platform available to qualifying partner organizations. Community members who have opted-in and track their trips on Strava are anonymously feeding into the Metro dataset and in turn, helping urban planners and transportation experts in their communities to understand mobility patterns, identify opportunities for investment and evaluate the impact of infrastructure changes, giving more opportunity through improved transportation access.
On a global scale, Strava data shows that there has been a higher adoption of cycling commutes in the past year, with Paris leading the way with 97% growth as a result of subsequent investment into cycling infrastructure:
- Paris (+97%)
- Rio de Janeiro (+62%)
- Berlin (+57%)
- Tokyo (+46%)
- Munich (+41%)
“Regardless of your motivation to choose active commuting, whether it’s walking, cycling, running rather than riding a motorbike or driving a car, one motivation which can bring people together is finding a way to reduce our carbon footprint,” Jérôme Sorrel, Author & Cycle Commute Commentator said.
“It is great to see this product update from Strava to monitor all the carbon savings I’ve made by choosing to cycle everyday,” Sorrel added.
Learn more about Metro here. Please visit Strava’s community hub to learn how to tag your commutes.
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