Swapping Car for a Bike Saves Up to 4 Tonnes CO2

Pre-Covid, the average worker in the UK would spend over a year of their life commuting to and from work, which took its toll on us mentally and physically. As the UK starts to come out of the pandemic, we are beginning to once again become a nation of commuters.

In light of COP26, many of us are thinking about ways we can reduce our carbon footprint and be more sustainable. The experts at Merlin Cycles wanted to challenge the commuting status quo and propose a better alternative: what would happen if you swapped your car for a bike for 12 months?

The cycling experts conducted a study using a range of sources to discover how our bodies, minds and the environment around us would benefit from making the transition. Merlin found that:

• Cycling can reduce stress, as it releases endorphins – the happiness hormone
• It might seem obvious, but cycling more frequently will cause us to lose weight – if the average commuter spent the same time travelling on bike as they did in a car, they’d lose about 560 calories a day
• After two weeks of swapping your car out for a bike, your lungs could have increased in capacity by as much as 15%
• After three months, you could have saved up to £400 in travel expenses, which is enough to cover the cost of a decent bike
• After six months, you will take half as many sick days as you usually would, due to being healthier
• After one year of swapping out your car, you will have saved between 2 and 4 metric tons of C02 emissions – the weight of at least 2 cars!

The full study and commentary can be found here.