Climate Action Through Cycling and Recycling

Your gift will support Life Cycle's mission to transform lives and the environment through cycling. Cycling is an emission free, low carbon, affordable way to travel. Our social impact projects make cycling accessible for everyone - empowering people to travel sustainably, while gaining financial and wellbeing benefits.

Our projects are all about promoting healthy thriving communities, while reducing negative climate impacts. We work with refugees, prisoners, vulnerable youth, disabled people and more to make the following climate actions: 

1) Bike Recycling: Last year our bike recycling scheme recycled 750 bikes, saving 11,400 kilos of metal from waste. Through our in-prison bike recycling project, prisoners are empowered to upcycle broken bicycles into safe, quality, recycled bikes, all while gaining a bike mechanic qualification to help them find employment. These bikes are sold affordably or given free to people in need, making cycling possible for members of the community.

2) Reduce Carbon Emissions: Each person who learns to cycle or receives one of our recycled bikes is empowered to use green transport instead of fossil fuel alternatives. Each bike recycled saves the emissions of manufacturing a new one. And in the bike's first year of use, traveling by bike instead of car will save on average 150kg CO2e from being emitted.  Cycling also makes other types of sustainable transport such as trains more accessible. This means that each time our projects teach someone to fix a bike or improve their cycle confidence the impact expands, as cycling and green transport becomes accessible for more and more people.

3) Empower Climate Action: The ability to choose a sustainable lifestyle is often only accessible to those with financial privilege. Our projects make sustainable transport possible for everyone, all while alleviating wider health and poverty challenges. From cycle experiences accessible for visually impaired people, to cycle skills for children in school, we empower climate action for those who didn't think it possible. Our youth and schoolwork is key for long-term impact as once a child learns to cycle they gain a life skill that unlocks the option of cycling - and affordable green transport - for the rest of their life.

"[Life Cycle] regularly collects abandoned bikes from Bristol Temple Meads (regardless of condition), fixes them and brings them back to working condition. Life Cycle then provides these fixed bikes to Bristol residents so they can ditch car journeys - a simple step to help people on low incomes to access trains as part of integrated transport in times of rising fuel prices. I wholeheartedly support Life Cycle... together we can build active, healthier, and sustainable communities." – Nigel, lost property manager at Bristol Temple Meads.

“Everyone benefits: prisoners learn new skills, the public can buy affordable bikes, road users benefit and so does the environment. It's just so wholesome.” – Sarah, recipient of a bike made at our Bikes Beyond Bars project.

Measuring impact

We monitor and evaluate across our projects, most often via our 'Learner Voice' and participant surveys - collecting data on participant satisfaction and project effectiveness. We record number of people impacted from different marginalised groups across each project. A few stats from our most recent impact report include:

• 12,869 lives touched through our cycling empowerment projects.
• 860 bikes recycled, including 516 given away to refugees or people on low income.
• 1,285 bikes serviced at our social enterprise hub.
• 713 children from deprived communities engaged in our cycle learning activities.
• 208 people trained as bike mechanics including 99 prisoners.