How Green Is Your Bike Ride? Strava Now Offers the Answer.
Last week, Strava, the ubiquitously connected fitness app, announced a new tool allowing cyclists to check their estimated carbon savings on the platform when they decide to ride to work instead of drive.
Strava hopes that the feature will further spotlight carbon savings and encourage more environmentally friendly modes of transportation among its users.
Social proof at work
With more and more companies mandating a return to offices, commuting is back on the rise. And with global gas prices also on the rise, many commuters turn to cycling or walking to work as an alternative. The new app update will display the amount of carbon saved on user activities labeled as “commute,” which Strava hopes influences the platform’s more than 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,” said Brian Bell, Strava’s vice president of global communications and social impact. “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.”
Since 2020, Strava has given free access to city planners, advocacy groups, and researchers to de-identified, aggregated commuting data via Metro, Strava’s proprietary web platform. Strava community members that opt-in can anonymously contribute to this dataset, which helps planners identify opportunities in their communities for infrastructural changes.
With this update, Strava has given its subscribers yet another tool that can be used for more than just tracking their rides. The data it provides could also ultimately help mitigate climate change on a much larger level.
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