Today, April 19, is International Bicycle Day. It is not an official date set by the United Nations (UN), but as indicated from www.ciudadesporlabicycle.org, the day “is worldwide known to defend the rights of cyclists and urge the institutions to offer eco-friendly alternatives to the transport network based on non-renewable fuels ”.
The Muévete #PorElClima campaign, which counts as a strategic ally BH, Ziklo Team and Transport & Environment, has that purpose: to promote this ecological, economic and beneficial means of transport for our health. The initiative will last for a couple of months, and through the website porelclima.es/muevete-en-bici, it allows a collective purchase of electric and conventional bicycles, offering a significant discount on each unit, with the aim of promoting sustainable urban mobility.
The campaign was presented today at the headquarters of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces in Madrid, with the participation of Juan Espadas, Mayor of Seville (a city that has 180 km of bike lanes) and President of the Spanish Network of Cities for Climate, who, in addition to highlighting the role of the bicycle in meeting sustainability objectives and the fight against climate change, has committed to disseminating initiatives such as the one presented today among the 300 municipalities that make up the Network of Cities for Climate.
The bicycle increases the "Internal Happiness of cities"
Víctor Viñuales, representative of the group that promotes the #PorElClima Community, stressed that “the bike symbolizes a technology that is friendly to the climate and to the health of citizens, and it helps to increase what it has defined as “the Gross Internal Happiness of cities”.
“Using the bicycle for a trip of 5 km, for example to go to work, requires little more than 20 minutes. –Viñuales has underlined–. The round trip is 10 km per day, which for 20 days of work add up to 200 km per month. The same journey by private car supposes the emission of 38 kg of CO2 per month.
We need more riders, we need more bikes on our streets, we need to act to stop climate change ”.
The director of BH (José Antonio Gómez Damborenea), has highlighted that his company facilitates the use of bicycles for his employees, both for work and for sports use, giving access to bicycles at special prices, providing parking, changing rooms, etc. María Eugenia Muguerza, Talent Director at Liberty Seguros, also highlighted the promotion made by this company the use of bicycles among its workers, offering bike loans, training courses, design of safe routes, economic incentives for kilometers traveled ...
ingeteam
However, the merit of being a pioneer in financially incentivizing its employees to go in bike to work corresponds to Ingeteam.
This company became the first company in Spain to do so in March 2016. Specifically, Ingeteam pays 1 euro a day to workers at its headquarters, located in Albacete (another of the Spanish cities better adapted to bicycle transport) who commute to work by bike.
According to the company, since the beginning of the campaign, the number of employees who use the bike to go to work has grown exponentially, going from 5 to 40 people
In addition, thanks to this initiative, the firm's employees have avoided the emission of 11.500 Kg of CO2 into the atmosphere and they have traveled about 70.000 km by bicycle, an average of 8kms / day. These data, Ingeteam assures us, “confirm the success of the campaign that, during its first year of operation, in addition to reducing vehicle emissions, has contributed to improving the health and general well-being of the employees themselves, since daily exercise contributes to the reduction of stress and anxiety, effects that represent a significant decrease in absenteeism".
This positive balance has made Igenteam decided to maintain the initiative for another year, with the aim of overcoming fifty participants throughout 2017. The Ingeteam Service work center in Albacete has about 400 employees who work both in the central offices of the Science Park and the Campollano Industrial Estate, as in the different wind and photovoltaic parks in the province, providing Operation and Maintenance services.
Decisive moment
Valvanera Ulargui, director of the Spanish Office for Climate Change, believes that “our generation is experiencing a decisive moment in the fight against poverty, inequality and environmental degradation. As a society we have understood that we must modify our development model towards a new low carbon and climate resilient model. And there is an unprecedented mobilization in favor of a new model and a new society ”.
This was stated in the presentation of Muévete #PorElClima, adding that “we are all very necessary in this challenge, which will only be possible with the sum of the actions of each one of us ”. Ulargui has assured that from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Fisheries and the Environment, they will continue to involve society in the fight against climate change. "One of our main lines of work will be to raise awareness about the importance of a better environment for citizens, and of the need for their involvement to achieve it ”.
