Lyft, Inc.
At a Glance
Industry
Internet, Software, Hardware and Technology Services
Project Types
Data Analysis, Supply Chain, Sustainability and Energy Management Strategy
Year
2019
Location
San Francisco, CA
Summary
Kate Logan developed Lyft’s first-ever sustainability framework to minimize environmental impacts across the life cycle of its shared bikes and scooters.
Goals
Lyft, a transportation network company, launched its bikes and scooters business in July 2018, taking a key step toward its mission of improving people’s lives with the world’s best transportation. While environmental sustainability is one of four key tenets guiding Lyft’s expansion of micromobility options, Lyft recognizes that understanding how rideables reduce emissions requires full life-cycle visibility. Lyft enlisted EDF Climate Corps fellow Kate Logan to examine how environmental impacts can be minimized across the cradle-to-cradle bike and scooter supply chain.
Solutions
In order to pinpoint Lyft’s biggest opportunities for improving bikes and scooters sustainability, Logan conducted an internal scoping exercise that involved interviewing relevant stakeholders, visiting two scooter warehouses, reviewing existing documents, and researching publicly available information. She then performed a quantitative life-cycle analysis (LCA) of Lyft’s newest e-scooter and e-bike models to determine how greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts are distributed across production, transportation, operations and end-of-life handling. The LCA results informed Logan’s comprehensive sustainability framework that recommends actions for reducing the life-cycle environmental impacts of bikes and scooters through more efficient sourcing, shipping, rebalancing, battery charging, maintenance, and end-of-life practices. Logan’s sustainability framework also identified opportunities for integrating sustainability into business performance metrics and aligned these metrics with increasingly stringent municipal regulations.
Potential Impact
Logan’s LCA results demonstrate how Lyft could reduce the per-mile GHG impacts for e-scooters and e-bikes. Her sustainability framework will help Lyft reduce emissions across its bike and scooter supply chain, operations, and end-of-life, and streamline cross-functional communication.