The organisation’s near term sustainability targets have now been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi); the recognised global network for ambitious corporate climate action and leading the transition to a net-zero economy.

By working with the SBTi to achieve validation, Beryl is ensuring that its near-term company-wide emission reductions are in line with climate science.

Beryl’s commitments, which can be found here, are to reduce scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 38% by 2030* and to measure and reduce its scope 3 emissions.

Beryl CEO and co-founder, Phil Ellis said: “Climate change is a huge issue and, as a sustainable company, we must ensure we are part of the solution by striving to reduce our own carbon footprint even further. 

“As a micromobility provider, our vehicles are powered by either people or electricity and our systems already play a big role in decarbonising the UK’s transport system, and delivering the energy transition.

“We already operate as a carbon neutral organisation, first reducing and as a last resort offsetting our carbon emissions through projects and initiatives, but we can’t just stop there.

“Setting targets with an organisation as significant as the STBi reinforces our carbon reduction plan and will help us build on the work we’re already doing.”

Beryl’s Corporate Carbon Footprint measures all the greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol and we follow a simple 4-step process to manage our emissions. This applies to all of our products and specific service areas and includes – Measure, Reduce emission, Offset residual emissions, Communicate.

Since Beryl launched its first share scheme in April 2019, they have generated more than 2,267,000 sustainable transport journeys across 8,690,000 km – nearly 217 journeys around the Earth. According to industry calculations, this has saved almost 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

Earlier this year, Beryl was re-certified as a B-Corporation company for another three years. Achieving this required the company to be successfully evaluated on, amongst other things, its environmental impact and the work done to reduce it, which includes:

• Appointing a dedicated ESG and Sustainability Manager, Sophie Noakes, to develop and implement a strategy to guide the company to net-zero
• Beryl is unique as a UK operator in that it designs, builds and fixes its bikes in its own specialist UK workshops, reducing the need for mass, long-distance transportation
• Every part is tracked from inventory, to bike build, to live service, to reuse and then, if applicable, recycle
• Parts that are damaged beyond repair and unable to be reused are recycled where possible
• Assets are recycled as efficiently as possible by separating them into categories (metal, rubber etc). All parts are weighed before collection to verify against recycling certificates.
• Beryl has accredited recycling partners including Ecolamp, who recycle end of life lithium batteries
• Beryl also works with Velorim and, during 2022 to date, has successfully recycled over a metric tonne (1000kg) of tyres and 374 kg of innertubes, preventing them from going into landfills 
• Another partner, Noveon, recycles the magnets from Beryl motors so they can supply them to the electric motor industry

The Paris Agreement has set long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 °C, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 °C. 

This figure hasn’t been plucked out of thin air – it has been identified by World Meteorological Organisation scientists as the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and the entire planet. Models show that 3.7 degrees of warming could cause global damages of $551 trillion. That’s nearly double the current global wealth. 

*from a 2021 base year