Lime electric scooters go carbon neutral as they continue global expansion

These days Lime’s electric scooters are seemingly everywhere. While the little electric vehicles are surely more energy efficient than most other forms of urban transportation, the electricity to charge them has to come from somewhere. And sometimes, the sources aren’t as clean as we’d like.

But not for long. Today Lime announced their new carbon neutral initiative known as Lime Green.

Lime Green carbon neutral initiative

The new Lime Green plan will see Lime become the first scooter company with a completely carbon neutral footprint.

According to Lime Vice President of Sustainability Andrew Savage:

“Lime is a mission-driven company, built on the principles of sustainable cities. This initiative helps us deepen our environmental commitment, and empowers our riders to make a difference, knowing that each of their scooter or e-bike rides will be carbon free. Our goal has always been to transform the way people move in cities through greener alternatives, and we’re proud to take this next step towards a more sustainable future.”

To achieve this carbon neutrality, the Lime Green initiative includes a partnership with NativeEnergy, a leading renewable energy and carbon project developer. That partnership will allow Lime Green to ensure all scooter and e-bike rides globally will be carbon neutral.

As part of Lime Green, the scooter-sharing company will purchase renewable energy credits from both new and existing projects for the electricity used to charge its fleet of bikes and electric scooters. Lime also plans to buy carbon offsets to account for the local operations and management of its fleet.

According to Lime’s CEO Toby Sun:

Through Lime’s partnership with NativeEnergy, an industry leader in building new renewable energy and carbon offset projects, we’ll be:

• Investing in a portfolio to help build new renewable energy projects, beginning with a new solar project in Iowa that will green our fleet in Minneapolis
• Buying renewable energy from the Capricorn Ridge Wind Farm in Texas to green our fleet in Austin, Dallas and San Antonio
• Offsetting the remaining fuel-based carbon emissions associated with our entire fleet of operations vehicles via verified projects in NativeEnergy’s portfolio, including new projects that will reduce carbon emissions for years to come

Lime’s international expansion

The introduction of Lime Green comes as the California-based electric scooter sharing company continues its world expansion.

In addition to operating in over 100 locations throughout the US, Lime’s electric scooters can be found in France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Spain. Just this past week, Lime added Mexico City to its list of international cities.

And the company doesn’t appear to be slowing down either. Based on recent job postings in Singapore for Juicers, or freelance chargers of electric scooters, it looks like that Southeastern Asia country could be next on Lime’s list.

Electrek’s Take

Lime and Bird are the two largest dockless electric scooter sharing companies around. The two have been locked in a strong battle for market share. Bird recently unveiled a new electric scooter model as well as a delivery program for all-day rental Bird scooters. That marked Bird as the first company to offer such services.

Now Lime is hitting back with its own first: carbon neutrality with Lime Green.

While each individual scooter charge might be responsible only a small amount of carbon emissions, any step towards reducing overall emissions is a step in the right direction.

And as the scooter wars continue to heat up, we’ll likely see continue volleys from the two main electric scooter companies. Each is trying new tactics to win over riders, which is a generally good thing for everybody. It will be exciting to see what they come up with next.