Dockless e-scooter companies like Lime and Bird sell themselves as an environmentally friendly transportation option, but two thirds of the time people use scooters, they are contributing MORE CO2 emissions than they would have if scooter share was not an option, according to a life cycle analysis done by researchers at NC State.
A dockless scooter share emits a little over 200 grams of CO2 per mile traveled, compared to just over 400 for a passenger car, but scooters aren’t actually displacing travel that would be done by car. When researchers surveyed e-scooter riders, only 34% said without an e-scooter option, they would have otherwise used their own car or Uber/Lyft for the trip. 11% would have taken the bus (lower CO2 footprint than a scooter), nearly half would have biked or walked (much lower CO2 than a scooter), and 7% would have just skipped the trip.
If you are surprised that an e-scooter’s carbon footprint would be as high as half that of a car, consider the following:
- Shared scooters have a service life no higher than about 24 months on the high end, and as low as 6 months on the low end. They get very heavy use, left out in the elements, and also stolen, trashed, and unfortunately even thrown in rivers. The electrolytic smelting process for aluminum to make replacements is extremely carbon-intensive.
- Having freelancers drive all around cities in conventional cars searching for scooters to charge is very carbon-intensive. It’s also really inefficiently done. Chargers are paid by the number of scooters they pick up, and can collect any scooters in any location in their city once the scooters become available for pickup, without specified location routes, areas for pickup, or specified scooters, and even without any regard for the scooters’ batteries’ state of charge, meaning they get paid for picking up fully-charged scooters.
These issues also don’t take into account other sustainability concerns around the production of these scooters, including toxics released during their production and ultimate disposal, and labor and social issues in China, where virtually all these scooters are manufactured. It’s a shame, because our cities definitely need a last-mile solution to encourage greater use of public transportation, and these scooters are also a lot of fun to ride, but the dockless e-scooter business model provides a cautionary example of the importance of full life cycle analysis and consideration of human and social factors before adopting a product or service as a sustainable alternative.
GAIA Science Advisors, LLC 