Bike friendly business
There are plenty of ways to reduce your carbon footprint and do more for the planet. However, sometimes after years of taking shorter showers, recycling, composting, and eliminating animal products, it can be easy to feel like individual efforts don’t make an impact. When tempted with cynicism, however, it’s time to get creative.
Environmental concerns are important to me, as is personal health and wellness. It’s affirming that my workplace shares these concerns—and is willing to be proactive about them. Faced with the global challenges in the world, it’s important to buoy our spirits and work to be the best versions of ourselves.
That’s why Bike Friendly Businesses aim to create support for our work communities, bodies, and environment. Whether it’s getting some good exercise, saving on gas costs, or just knowing your company has your back, we want to celebrate the small victories.
What exactly is BFB?
Bike Friendly Business is a title given by the League of American Bicyclists. To qualify, a business needs to meet criteria in Encouragement, Education, Engineering, and Evaluation & Planning. Both culture and policies support biking and healthy lifestyles—in employees and the community as a whole.
When Broomwagon Bikes + Coffee brought the program to our attention, we found it aligned with our core convictions as a company. A couple of those convictions are to engage in local community and support local initiatives. Most importantly, perhaps, we consider our overall impact—environmental, economical, and social.
Having the official “BFB” designation means we’re formally allied with other companies that are committed to social responsibility. In other words, we’re part of something bigger. Pretty cool.
Why do it?
Besides the reminder to get outside and feel the sunshine on our faces, applying gave us an opportunity to articulate some of our culture goals. We want to cultivate a company culture that prioritizes employee satisfaction, health, and social responsibility. Believing in individual effort and responsibility is contagious. The odds are, if your family, neighbors, or coworkers see that you believe biking to work is worth it, they will, too.
It also gave us an opportunity to work more closely with other local businesses, including our neighbors at Broomwagon (also a certified Bike Friendly Business). They were super helpful in the process.
Not least of all, it’s a business decision. Our ideal clients want to work with businesses they believe in—businesses that care about people, quality of life, and the impact we’re making on the world around us.
What it looks like for out team
We’ve put policies in place that make it easy and enjoyable for our team to incorporate biking into their routines. These include company-covered tuneups and reimbursements for bike parts and mileage. We also provide resources like safe riding advice, maintenance tips, and local bike maps. See our internal write-up of these benefits here.
We have an office bike for team use and keep basic maintenance gear on hand for quick fixes. To remove as many hurdles as possible from the actual commute, we have flexible scheduling and dress, plus safe bike parking and guaranteed rides home if the weather turns non-bike-able.
Find us on the road
There’s plenty of room for innovation as a Bike Friendly Business. While certain activities are on hold with the pandemic, we’re just getting started with ideas on how to promote bicycling in the community. We’re thinking of fun team rides or hosting a biking challenge.
On the last National Bike to Work Day, for example, the crew hopped on our bicycles and pedaled to Lexington local favorite Stella’s Deli. We ate sandwiches and toasted bourbon ball coffees. We biked back, ready to dig into our latest project with renewed vigor.
Join the movement
Interested in becoming bike-friendlier? We recommend it. Drop us a line to chat. You can also find more info on the League’s website about how to apply and make improvements.
