Trek says aluminium is “the elephant in the room” when it comes to its global emissions, with 95% of all its CO2 coming from suppliers who source materials and build its bikes. The data comes from Trek’s latest sustainability report, an ambitious audit of the US-based bike brand’s environmental impact, which it hopes to use to make its business cleaner.

While mountain biking is obviously great for our health and happiness, the dirty industry secret is that making mountain bikes has a big environmental impact, 475,873 metric tons of CO2e in 2023, in the case of Trek. This is actually down by nearly half from the brand’s first ever report in 2021, although reduced production largely explains the decline.

Now though, Trek says its future is to change its aluminium supply chain. The Gen 3 Marlin 5 will result in a claimed 53.7% reduction of CO2 emissions.

Trek 2024 sustainability report need to know:

• 95% of Trek’s emissions are claimed to come from their suppliers
• Changes to the aluminium supply chain for the Trek Gen 3 Marlin 5 will result in a claimed 53.7% reduction of CO2 emissions
• More recycled materials to feature across accessories range
• E-bike batteries to get longer lifespan to reduce e-waste
• Goals include sourcing all electricity from renewable sources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by almost 70% in some areas

The brand has been focusing on reducing its greenhouse gas emissions since 2021 when Trek released its first ever sustainability report. That revealed how impactful the use of carbon fibre is on the environment, with three times as much CO2 released than an equivalent alloy bike. Naturally though Trek makes many times more alloy than carbon frames, meaning it’s the metal supply chain it says it needs to address first.

The 2024 sustainability report from Trek highlights the need to move away from fossil fuel-powered suppliers for alloy bikes, as they want to reduce emissions created by a single bike by up to 70%.

It’s a pretty North American centric read, as the brand is based in the US, but there some interesting takeaways for the rest of the industry and world, too. We’ve pulled together some of the key points from the 2024 report and how it might impact your customer experience with Trek.

The 2024 report, key points

We’ve trawled through the 39 page document so you don’t have to, and what a read it was. Trek isn’t the first brand to release a sustainability report, but it still isn’t something that’s overly commonplace within the bike industry.

It’s still ironic that bikes, as tools for green travel, can actually cause so much environmental harm as an industry. So, what exactly is Trek aiming to do to negate some of this harm?

The brand wants to reduce emissions by 32.5% by 2032

Two of the three main goals are around reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They’re split into three different areas of Scope, with the largest focus (95.4%) of emissions coming from Trek’s supply chain. The brand wants to reduce these emissions by 32.5% by 2032.

The other two Scopes focus on emissions from purchased energy and owned or controlled sources. For example, a Trek retail store in the US.

And the final goal is to source all Trek’s electricity from renewable sources. Easy, right?

At first glance, things look pretty good for Trek. The brand reports a significant drop in emissions, with 475,873 metric tonnes of CO2 emitted in 2023 compared to 895,000 in their previous report.

But, as any good statistician will tell you, it’s all about how you interpret the data. And to be fair to Trek, the brand has highlighted that these numbers are likely tied to the lower volume of goods production in 2023. This is because of the lower post-Covid demand, and other industry problems.

So, in real terms, in 2024 the emissions may be higher than 2023, but it’s not just about the total number of metric tonnes emitted. It’s about creating lasting change, and reducing the impact where possible.

Why is Trek choosing to tackle aluminium-based emissions?

According to the report, back in 2021, the company discovered that their top contributor to greenhouse gas emissions was from aluminium. This was because of the manufacturing process involving a lot of fossil fuels.

What the brand realised was that by producing the aluminium frames in facilities that were powered by renewable energy rather than fossil fuels, the impact of this process lowered significantly.

It might sound like a pretty obvious solution, but it takes a bold strategy to essentially disrupt your entire supply chain – especially if the current suppliers and manufacturers can’t or won’t change to utilising different energy sources.

So what has Trek done to lower emissions?

So far, the brand has created a new aluminium sourcing policy, which essentially lists criteria for suppliers and supply chain partners to ensure their emissions are as low as possible. This means that the aluminium sourced for frames like the Trek Marlin hardtail, one of their top-selling bikes, will come only from those sites powered by renewable energy.

But it’s not just bikes that the brand is focusing on. Their helmet range is also getting a look at, in particular those with EPS foam. As of now, Trek claims that up to 50% of the EPS foam on select models is recycled, significantly lowering the CO2 emissions compared to virgin material usage.

Trek is also looking at applying ‘eco’ friendliness to areas like bar tape and grips, using more and more recycled materials in the manufacturing process. Recycled packaging and the removal of plastic packaging from things like pumps has also helped to save 13,600kg of plastic in 2023.

Electric bike batteries

While electric bikes are one of the fastest growing mountain bike segments, there’s no denying the mining of lithium, nickel and cobalt for the batteries is somewhat problematic.

Trek suggests that by increasing the lifespan of an e-bike battery, and making them easier to recycle, they will become even more sustainable methods of transport…or you know, off-road fun machines.

It’s all well and good saying this is what they want to do, but how exactly is Trek planning on making their batteries last longer? With a new 48V system, which will have three new features aimed at increasing the lifespan.

Firstly, is optimised charging, which is basically like a slow trickle charge and keeps the battery cells at a lower temperature. Then there is extended life mode, which limits the charge and discharge levels of the battery so you don’t over charge or fully discharge it.

Finally, there is long term storage mode, which as you can probably guess, helps to minimise impact of long-term storage on the battery health.

Bike trade-in

Over in the US, Trek launched the Red Barn Refresh initiative, which allows customers to trade in their bikes for credit. The bikes traded in are then refurbished and re-sold online – keeping bikes out of landfill. In 2023, 2,791 bikes were refurbished.

Recycled rubber

Tyres were also on the list of things to improve emissions on, starting with adding recycled carbon black into some of the brand’s tyres, back in 2022. Carbon black is known as a reinforcing agent and the manufacture of it consumes a lot of fossil fuels.

So, Trek started using recycled carbon black and ended up saving 56.7 metric tonnes of virgin carbon black in 2023. And they’re not just using recycled rubber, they’re also helping people to recycle their tyres – something that is notoriously difficult to do for consumers.

In the US, the brand trialled tyre recycling programmes at some Trek stores, and as of November 2024, all Trek stores in the continental US operate the programme.

Keeping the water clean

But it’s not just manufacturing and products that Trek has control over. There are many Trek-owned stores across the US, and thus the brand has turned its attention to keeping potentially damaging chemicals in bike wash and lubricants etc. from getting into local waterways. In 80 stores, Trek has installed oil interceptors, which help to separate liquid waste so it doesn’t enter drainage systems.

Supporting initiatives to give people places to ride

Trek is also looking beyond emissions in its sustainability report, supporting the Trek Trails Foundation which helps to build trail networks across the United States. It aims to conserve land and promote access for riders, and now has 9 locations across the US.

What does Trek forecast for the future?

It’s not all good news though, Trek has outlined some areas in its report that are more of a realistic outlook on the current climate. For example, the fact that Trek is a business distributed across the globe means that it can be tricky to collate data and then enact change when there are so many different processes, laws and systems at play.

Furthermore, there just aren’t replacements for all materials used in bike manufacturing just yet. Think about carbon fibre or lithium-ion batteries. They’re not entirely great for the environment, and we have no direct replacements for them just yet.

Of course, it’s not just on Trek to take the helm of reducing the environmental impact the bike industry has. But reports like these help to keep things more transparent, and can bring about trust between customers and brands. So will we see more openly discussed objectives and ideals from other bike manufacturers? We’ll have to wait and see.

trekbikes.com