“We regret to inform you

that scooters aren’t actually

good for the environment”
Companies like Bird and Lime have been selling us a
promise about their electric scooters: “They’re great
for the planet!” ​For the most part,​ we’ve
enthusiastically embraced this notion, and it’s helped
catapult scooters into popularity. Last year, riders
took about 38​.​5 million trips on them.

But it might be time to question the climate-friendly narrative. ​Just because​ the scooters themselves
don’t ​spew ​out carbon dioxide, ​doesn’t mean​ the process of making, charging, and transporting them
is emission-free.

In fact​, ​on the whole​, scooters are​ ​worse​ ​for the environment than the modes of transportation they’re
replacing, according to a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal ​Environmental Research
Letters​.

Researchers at North Carolina State University set out to determine how much harm to the climate
results from each portion of a scooter’s “life cycle.” They found that most of the harm comes from
manufacturing the device, which is typically done in China, and from transporting it around a city,
which is typically done by — you guessed it — cars.

Each night, after we’ve parked​ ​our scooters on the curb, the companies behind them pay contractors
(known as “Juicers” or “Chargers”) to drive around the city and gather them, transport them to be
charged, and then reposition them in places where they’ll likely be picked up in the morning.

The researchers tallied up the greenhouse gas emissions used in making and moving the scooters
around, as well as the relatively small amount of emissions that comes from shipping the materials
from China to the US and from charging the scooters. They used all that information to calculate the
total emissions per passenger mile. ​Then ​they compared that to the emissions per passenger mile
produced by other modes of transportation.

The result: Scooters typically produce more emissions than a standard bus with high ridership, an
electric moped, an electric bicycle, a regular bicycle, or a good old carbon-free walk.

The ​researchers​ also note some important survey results from Raleigh, North Carolina. If there were
no scooter option available, almost half of scooter riders say they would have biked or walked
instead. Both of those are more climate-friendly alternatives. Another 11 percent would’ve hopped on
the bus — also a greener option if it’s got high ridership, according to the study — and 7 percent
would’ve not made the trip at all.

Only 34 percent say they would have used their own car or a service like Uber or Lyft.

So, assuming the findings are generalizable ​beyond​ North Carolina, the idea that giving people
access to scooters means they’ll decrease their reliance on cars substantially — that is, substantially
enough to make up for the climate impact of the scooters themselves — turns out to be false.

It’s worth noting that Lime announced last year that it would make efforts to green its fleet — for
example, by buying renewable energy (it’s investing in both solar and wind). The company ​r​esponded
to the new study​, saying, “We welcome research into the environmental benefits of new mobility
options; however, this study is largely based on assumptions and incomplete data that produces high
variability in the results. We believe micro-mobility will reduce pollution and mitigate climate change.”

However,​ the findings in the new study are consistent with ​previous​ ​research​ on scooters. It looks like
the advent of scooters may actually be a net negative for the planet — at least, given the way we’re
putting them to use right now.

How we can make scooters a legitimately green option

The study isn’t all doom and despair; it also highlights the ​green​ potential of scooters and includes
recommendations for deploying them more efficiently.

First of all, ​as the study notes, “choosing an e-scooter over driving a personal automobile with a fuel
efficiency of 26 miles per gallon results in a near universal decrease in global warming impacts.” In
other words, scooting is definitely better than driving a car, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that basic
fact. The question is ​whether​ we can get scooters to be better than buses, bikes, and other vehicles.

One big challenge is that scooters just don’t last long on the mean streets of, well, pretty much any
American city. In theory, they’re built to last for two years, but that doesn’t account for all the people
who throw them into rivers and lakes, light them on fire, drop them into garbage cans, or ​otherwise
vandalize them. Sometimes people do this because they’re frustrated that scooters have invaded
their streets; other times, they just want a stunt that’ll look cool on Instagram.

In any case, scooters now only last a month or two on the streets. That ​disposability​ is a problem for
the climate, because it means scooter companies have to engage in more extraction of raw materials
like aluminum, more shipping from China to the US, and so on.