Episode 144: Andrew Savage, Founding Team & Head of Sustainability at Lime
Today's guest is Andrew Savage, Co-Founder & Head of Sustainability at Lime.
Lime is a micromobility transportation company with a fleet of shared e-bikes, e-scooters, and now e-mopeds providing fun, efficient, and sustainable ways to move around cities.
Andrew started his career working in public policy and communications. He served as Deputy Chief of Staff & Legislative Director for Congressman Peter Welch in the US House of Representatives when Congress passed the only sweeping climate legislation to date. Leaving public government, Andrew spent six years working in the solar energy, renewables, and transportation sectors. During this time, Andrew became increasingly interested in how shared electrified transportation could move the needle on carbon emissions. With a passion for urban mobility and sustainability, Andrew was a founding team member at Lime. He initially focused on new market development, government relations, and policy strategy for the company. Today, Andrew and Lime have grown tremendously. Lime has logged over 200 million trips and expanded globally. Andrew now serves as the Head of Sustainability, managing Lime's zero-emission commitments, sustainability goals, and climate-focused initiatives.
Andrew and I have a stimulating discussion about his career path from policy to transportation and what inspired him to work in urban mobility. He walks me through how his role has evolved and how sustainability became one of Lime's core functions. We also have a broader conversation about how to make micromobility more sustainable, Andrew's thoughts on the future of transportation, and the role legislation plays in the energy transformation. Andrew is an awesome guest, especially for those interested in micromobility and transitioning their companies' to sustainable practices.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded February 4th, 2021.
In Today's episode we cover:
Andrew's climate journey and what led him to co-found Lime
Lime's mission, how the company started, and how the company has grown
Andrew's role and how the sustainability function of the company came about
How Lime transitioned to a more sustainable future
Lime's commitments and sustainable partnerships
The carbon accounting tools Lime used to understand their emissions footprint
High impact changes Andrew sees Lime taking on in the future
Key gaps in the lifecycle of scooters ad how that contributes to their waste
Carbon offsets as they relate to Lime's sustainability goals
How mandates and government regulations affect the climate crisis
Most impact types of regulations for micromobility and transportation
How the lack of infrastructure and policy at the local level create barriers for micromobility
The most impactful thing that can accelerate the adoption of micromobility
The future of cities and transportation within those cities
How Lime establishes new municipal relationships and how they go to market
Andrew's advice for founders who want to adopt sustainable goals
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There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community, a number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of nonprofits that have been and established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there, a bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well. At any rate, if you wanna learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co, the website and click, the become a member tab at the top. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone. This is Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help.
Today's guest is Andrew Savage, Head of Sustainability and member of the Founding Team of Lime. Lime is revolutionizing micromobility and empowering a new urban lifestyle. They let riders easily find and unlock their fleet of shared smart bikes, scooters, and now mopeds providing them with a fun, efficient, and sustainable way to move around the city. As a founding member of the company, Andrew led new market development, government relations and policy strategy, and also helped the company expand globally to its first a hundred markets while raising over 700 million and growing to over 700 employees along the way. We covered a lot of ground in this episode, including the origin story for the company, their progress to date, their long vision, and what's coming next. We also talk about Andrew's role and how the sustainability function came to be, when and why it came to be, as well as what the business case was to start investing more explicitly in this area.
We covered some of the key initiatives that they've done to date to make the company more sustainable. And we also talked about the future, not only in terms of how to make micromobility more sustainable over time, but also transportation, the future of cities and the broader climate puzzle, in general. I enjoyed this one and I hope you do as well. Andrew, welcome to the show.
Andrew Savage: It's great to be with you.
Jason Jacobs: Great to have you. It's funny I had Melinda Hanson back when she was at Bird, back on the show, what feels like a decade ago, although maybe it was six months or a year ago. And Lime of course, is, is another kind of formidable company in a similar category and excited to bring you on both to get a different perspective from one of the leaders, but also, I mean, six months or a year in pandemic time, a lot of changes.
Andrew Savage: Yes. So that and I think pandemic time really underscores that we have seen a ton of change in this space in the last 12 months in response to the pandemic and I think it's a really interesting time for mobility, for sure.
Jason Jacobs: Well, there's plenty of threads I wanna pull on there, but before we get too far down that path, maybe we should just take it from the top, at what is Lime?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, so we are a share micromobility company that operates eScooters, eBikes and eMopeds. And we're now operating in over 130 markets across the globe, which covers over 30 countries. And our mission really is to change how urban mobility functions and what we're looking to do is build the transportation of the future which we think is shared, is electric and is ultimately carbon-free.
Jason Jacobs: And how did the company come about? What was the origin story?
Andrew Savage: So we originally started as LimeBike. We were a bike-share company. And if you might remember about four years ago, there was a boom in bike sharing, particularly in China. And we were essentially looking to bring that to United States in a way that could help solve urban mobility challenges, the first and last mile of challenge, which had vexed cities for, for generations or since their origin, or at least since the car. And we began with an app. We began with a bike and began with a few very small markets, like [inaudible 00:05:22], Florida and small part of Los Angeles and Tahoe, and we would essentially try to get any operational experience that we could get to prove the concept and, and learn the operations and perfect the service.
Jason Jacobs: And when was that?
Andrew Savage: So it was four years ago. So it was 2017.
Jason Jacobs: So, so it seems like it's all happened very quickly, because I mean, give us a sense, what kind of scale are you at today?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, our scale now is we have done over, our riders have taken over 200 million trips. The last 100 million happened in half the time as the first 100 million. We've expanded modes as I mentioned at the outset, we now, we do offer eScooters, we have an eBike and we have eMopeds, which were actually just introduced last week. And we're global and so-
Jason Jacobs: No electric skateboards jet.
Andrew Savage: No electric skateboards, no.
Jason Jacobs: [laughs].
Andrew Savage: [crosstalk 00:06:17] coming. You never know. Where I talk about that, about where we're headed and...
Jason Jacobs: I Love my electric skateboard. Actually I have, I have like a long line that's better for long-distance riding and things like that and then I have a short one that's kind of better for carving or if you need to carry it around the city or things. And I have a blast with it although, I mean, this morning I just got back from physical therapy and it was from a skateboard fall so-
Andrew Savage: Oh no [laughs].
Jason Jacobs: You know, there are some drawbacks, especially when you get a little more, a little older and, and more brittle.
Andrew Savage: Yeah. I hope you wear a helmet when you ride.
Jason Jacobs: I, I cannot confirm nor deny.
Andrew Savage: [laughs]. That's fair. That's fair.
Jason Jacobs: [laughs]. And so tell me, I mean, you told me a little bit about, kind of where the company started? What, how did it come about? And maybe we should even start before that. I mean, how did you come to, like did you come at it from a sustainability place? Did you come at it from a, from a bike riding place? Did you come at it from an entrepreneurship place? Like, you know, what was it that led you to co-founding this company?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, so I think most immediate was what, wh- which led me to line was I had actually spent a year living in Bogota, Columbia. And I had worked in the solar industry for a number of years, through that time fire and post. And as my wife and I were actually moving West to California, I started talking to folks in the solar industry and one of the individuals in the solar industry knew about my time in Bogota, knew about the cycling culture that existed there, my love for cycling. Now, I'm less of an urban cyclist and more of uh, get out in the country and a mountain cyclist, but at the same time I can really appreciate cycling's impact on urban mobility and sustainability. And he connected me with Toby and Brad who were at the time starting the company. And it was very clear from the outset that the company was going to need strong government relations and policy given the implications on, on, you know, city life and how governments were going to regulate the service.
And it really, for me fit with my goals on sustainability. I had spent six years in the solar industry talking about the electrification of transportation and saw shared transportation, electrified transportation, bikes at the time, evolving into new products is a real way to move the needle on carbon. And so that's what led me to the company and led me to work with Toby and Brad and the founding team to kick the company off.
Jason Jacobs: Now I know that in addition to being a co-founder that you're running sustainability for the company now, I mean, was, was sustainability always part of the core mission at Lime and was there always a sustainability team? Or tell me a little bit about how that role and function came about, and, and when that occurred as well?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, it, it was definitely something that evolved. I would say that, you know, with any startup, you're trying to manage survival, growth, all those things to be able to then have a broader and bigger mission. And so I would say for the first year, first two years, sustainability was part of what we wanted to achieve, but was often, you know, taking a backseat or at least sort of lurking there in the shadows. And as we really were in trying to survive, trying to compete, trying to really build a company, what, at the time we wanted to achieve was revolutionizing how urban mobility worked. We sorta knew at the, the end that there would be a sustainability play there. And it's certainly something that has always been on my mind. About two years into the company, we had introduced electric scooters, we were still doing eBikes.
And we, I think reached a turning point where we, I think had an opportunity to lean into the sustainability mission more. And I think it happened on two fronts. One, was our riders were demanding it and we saw in our riders that it was something that they valued and two, our city governments wanted to see us exemplify the sustainability that fit with their mission, but also be able to communicate our sustainability potential for those cities. I mean, all these cities around the country and around the globe have their own sustainability goals and aspirations and commitments, particularly with the Paris climate accord. And we needed to do a better job of explaining how we could fit into that. And so at about two years, at the company, I made a pitch to the founding team and said, "look, I think if I pivoted over to sustainability, it'll really help the company and could help us drive our mission forward and actually help us grow the business."
And that's what I did. And so I think, you know, to sum it up, I think we, it was always there, but just wasn't something that we could fully exercise because there were always more pressing challenges. But we were able to make the pivot and begin to build the sustainability function. And I think it's, in the last couple of years really blossomed into a core part of the mission of the company.
Jason Jacobs: So tell me about that transition from something that was kind of intuitively and maybe subliminally there to something that you were looking to be more explicit about and really treat as kind of a, you know, a core pillar with KPIs and accountability, and things like that. Where does one start and where did you start when making that transition?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, I think it started a bit just intuitively because it had always been there as part of the company. And so one of the first actions that we did was commit to charging our newly electrified fleet on renewable energy. Now this, this seems like a no-brainer, but at the time we were the first micromobility company to make that commitment and, and begin the practice of charging electrified fleets on renewable energy for shared micromobility. And th- that's a function that we still of course continue and have moved from there, well beyond that. And so I think in some ways the sort of starting with the intuitive things makes a ton of sense, but then building it into the function of the company and the practices of the company up and down and throughout, you know, we just announced a ride green initiative in the fall, which brings that together in a more sort of Folsom state, in that we made, made zero commitment and we're committed to a science-based target.
We expanded our renewable energy commitment to include all of our facilities and we've committed to shift all of our operations vehicles to electric vehicles. And so I think what that shows is sort of the evolution of sustainability as part of the company. And in fact, out of that ride green initiative, we modified and revised our company mission around. As I said, at the outset, building the transportation of the future, that is one, shared flow of resources. Two, electric., it allows you to power on renewable energy and three carbon-free. And that's an aspiration for the company of operating in a decarbonized future, which we know is critical for addressing the climate crisis.
Jason Jacobs: Now you're not going to get much debate for me about how that's [inaudible 00:13:21] the right thing to do. But I guess one question that, that I have is what is the business case for, for those actions?
Andrew Savage: Well, let me take our electrified operations fleet as an example, it was something that I wanted us to do for many months before we made the commitment. But what it took was actually doing a total cost of ownership study, a TCO study from our procurement team of what would be the cost and what would be the benefit of making that transition. And lo and behold, it turned out that it was actually good for the company's bottom line to make that transition. And now that's not to say that all of our sustainability commitments are good for the bottom line, from a dollars and cents perspective. I mean, buying renewable energy, sometimes it's more expensive. Sometimes it's less expensive. It doesn't, you know, necessarily always compute that uh, sustainability commitment will save the company money but I think to your question, it's a great example of a major commitment that actually makes the company more profitable.
And so I think it's those types of opportunities that really help reinforce the sustainability mission. I think there's another piece that's not just, uh, on the, on the financial ledger, it's what do our consumers writers of our product and what our regulators, cities and governments expect of us and want to see of us and how does that influence the businesses as well.
Jason Jacobs: And in terms of just initially getting your bearings around what your footprint looked like and what areas were ripest for change, how did you get your heads around that carbon accounting piece? Was that a lot of work? Were there any outside tools and resources that you built or you have to build tools in-house? Was it a very manual process? What did that look like?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, I'll be really candid. Some of it is ongoing. Where we started as a company was two plus years ago. We initiated our first life cycle analysis for our product. Now that actually looked at extensively throughout the business from manufacturer to shipping, into market, to the operations of the scooters, to the repair and reuse of the scooters, to the end of life when they're ultimately part that need to be recycled. And so we, through that exercise, we had done actually two of them in that two year period. We had a pretty good sense of the majority of our carbon impact because that is the bulk of the business. Everything from bringing the scooter to market and, and seeing it through its end of life. Certainly there are some things in the corporate side, you know, keeping the lights on in the office, et cetera, that work in a life cycle analysis.
But what that did was it gave us a really clear sense of the things that we needed to improve on. It showed that length of life of a scooter was critical in life cycle. That's a no-brainer, but it showed us that, you know, if you can increase length of life by 50% or a 100%, you'd have a really big impact on the life cycle of the, of the product. And I'm really proud to say that we actually have increased the lifespan dramatically. Early scooters simply didn't last long enough. So we went from having the details of life cycle analysis to expanding that work, which is looking at throughout the business, top to bottom, everything from services that are contracted to activities that happen at warehouses or offices, to understand our full picture and that's, what's helping us set our carbon goals and then be able to scale towards the net zero goal that we have for 2030.
Jason Jacobs: Have you come across anything so far that would be high impact for you to do, but that the business case is not there today.
Andrew Savage: It's a great question. I think that for example, high impact certainly would be using post-consumer materials for the entire or the vast majority of the products. And that is one that I'm really interested in and want to see us pursue. It's more costly and it takes some diligence on the supply chain side. It's something we're looking at very carefully because we think it's a really strong sustainability. It has a really strong sustainability impact. I'm happy to say that still the majority of the scooter's volume right now does come from post consumer-material because of the frame making up the vast majority of the way, but there's more we could do there. I think that's an example for sure. One thing that I'm really excited about is looking at the end of life. We have designed our scooters to be much more repairable and actually modular so parts can be swapped in and out of the scooter, which really helps our local operations teams, repair scooters, and keep them on, on the streets longer.
That has an enormous impact on sustainability and the life cycle. And now what we're doing is we have some exciting second life partnerships where once a park can't be reused anymore, take a battery that we don't have the capacity to refabricate. We actually have some second life partners where they're actually taking apart cells, taking apart the battery, [inaudible 00:18:27] cells, finding the ones that are still good and putting them into consumer products. I think that's a really exciting one and, and from a business perspective, that's a no-brainer from a financial perspective.
Jason Jacobs: As you look at the current life cycle, both of the scooters, and I guess across the, the other aspects of your business as well, are there key gaps? Uh, things that maybe you'd be waiting for from innovation standpoint, outside of the company that you haven't seen anybody solve yet that you're hoping that somebody does?
Andrew Savage: Well, I think, I think shipping is a space that from a sustainability perspective could have an enormous impact on carbon. And I think we would like to see the cleaning of the transport sector. We know of course that there are, you know, cleaner modes and more polluting modes. Air shipping for example, is incredibly polluting for the, the volume of what you can ship. So it's something that we've, leaned out of our business for both cost and sustainability reasons. But I think the transport sector is one that is right for carbon reduction and I, I haven't seen as much progress there as I would hope that we could have made by now.
Jason Jacobs: And what are some examples of what one might do around shipping to help make it cleaner?
Andrew Savage: It's a good question. You know, it's actually one that I'm not an expert in by any means, but um, thinking, I've seen some pilots and some commitments from transport industries around low carbon fuels, around, certainly around the freight sector in terms of trained use is an exciting potential, but candidly, it's one that I don't have my hands around and I think it's one that would be exciting to see where the sector can go, because it's still a significant portion of, of carbon pollution globally that will need to be solved. One way that we can help solve it is thinking about where we produce the scooters, how we order them, how frequently we need to order them, et cetera. And that's all stuff that we do think about on regular basis.
Jason Jacobs: And it, it sounds like you're still kind of zeroing in on the full life cycle from that carbon accounting standpoint. But as you continue to get your brain around it, and it's becoming clearer and clearer where the gaps are and what the delta is between, you know, where you are and, and where you might need to be, are there any thoughts, or, or maybe any actions today about what you're doing about the difference, you know, do you do any offsetting or carbon credits or negative emissions or anything like that?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, so we have bought carbon offsets for the operations of our fleet. So in a market where we've had to use combustion vehicles, something that, as I mentioned, we're scaling away. What we did do in November was set a commitment to a science-based target, which as, you know, sort of put loops and all of that. And so over the next few years, and immediately following the carbon study that we're doing full company-wide carbon study, that's wrapping up right now. We have really clear visibility into the carbon impact of various sectors of the business beyond lifecycle, which we were talking about and be able to set really clear and measurable targets to go forward.
So I'm actually really looking forward to that because what I have found at this company is that when you have the data and when you have the insights, we tend to actually choose really positive directions for the company. And it's really a matter of grabbing that data and being able to make the case for it.
Jason Jacobs: Now, when I listened to you talk, I, I mean, I think it's commendable that you're out there as a, you know, as an individual and as a company, trying to do the right thing and trying to take steps to make the company more sustainable. I can't help, but wonder though, and it seems like not many companies out there, percentage wise are gonna feel like you guys do and act like you guys are. And so I'm gonna say a statement as if it's a statement, but it's really a question that I want you to just, you know, kind of agree or disagree with. And then, you know, if you agree, why? If you disagree, why? And, and that's that in order to get any meaningful percentage of companies to move this whole, you know, pretty pleased, it's not a strategy and it's gonna take mandates and regulation. Do you agree or disagree?
Andrew Savage: I do agree. And you know, my background... Actually, I came from a policy and political background. I've worked in Congress when we passed the first and really only sweeping climate legislation in the US House, which then was stalled in the Senate if you are, may remember. And so I actually do believe that a strong climate regulation is important. I think we need to move the needle to bring sort of those who aren't compelled to act for other reasons, economic, consumer regulatory, you know. They need to be brought along. So when I mention regulatory, I mean, local governments, for example, regulate us versus state or federal, typically. So I think what is really encouraging is that the business cases for sustainable actions have really blossomed. I mean, you're seeing solar prices that in 15 years dropped dramatically wind the same.
You're seeing electric vehicle proliferation across the truck sector, uh, pickup truck sector vehicles, passenger vehicles. That all is because of impart regulation, but impart, because there's just a good business case for it. These vehicles last longer, or they have lower cost of ownership, they are good for the consumer, and there's always a piece that, where regulatory can move the needle and move it faster and for this climate crisis, we've gotta move faster.
Jason Jacobs: And do you have a sense when it comes to micromobility or even the transportation sector more broadly. What are the most impactful types of regulation would be? And also at least from a US standpoint, whether that would come from the state or a federal government?
Andrew Savage: Well, I think from a micromobility perspective, you know, we don't, I don't believe we need a lot of regulation to move the needle because it's all happening. And I think there's actually a race to the top right now in this industry around sustainability and the commitments that we make and, and how we're operating our businesses. We started the company and we were seen often as disruptors, right? We were new. We were using the public space in a different way. The pandemic, which we haven't touched on yet really actually changed that within weeks of the pandemic hitting. We had letters from city governments from around the world saying you're an essential service. You are a transit mode, that's socially distant, and we need you on the street. And for me as a, you know, having been with the company for the arc of disruption to essential services, really, I think a fascinating place.
And where I'm getting at is I think less around regulating the industry of how to be sustainable, or more. How do we have this industry flourish? I mean, there are, we're in 130 cities around the globe. There are another 130 cities and then some that could benefit from having low carbon, zero carbon forms of short-distance transportation. And that's how we move the needle is to have a wider proliferation of, of zero carbon transport options.
Jason Jacobs: I mean, you are way closer to it than I am, but my impression from the cheap seats is that things like permitting are way too slow at the city and municipality level and really make it hard to move quickly in this space. And also just the lack of infrastructure as it relates to safe places to ride bike lanes, things like that. So how much is that a factor and, and how much headwind is that creating for the industry at this point?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, you're spot-on about infrastructure. We strongly believe that the infrastructure in our cities needs to be improved for micromobility and other forms of non-car transportation. The cars sit idle 96% of their lives, and yet think about the enormous amount of space that they take up in parking garages and on-street parking, and how dramatically the future of a city could be altered if we were able to remove a significant amount of that parking. I mean, think about parking garage has turned into affordable housing. So people could actually live where they work, what a novel concept that is? Or think about the on-street parking that could be a protected bike lane. So it is absolutely a headwind, but in many ways, I think we're providing the use case and the evidence that cities should make these investments. We were able to, and regularly share data with our city partners on where people are riding.
That gives them a pretty clear indication of where they should invest resources into protected transportation, like bike lanes and protected lanes. So I think it's a real opportunity for cities to, to grow smarter and to be able to think about a more interconnected transportation system. How do we interconnect with public transit? Is always something that we're thinking about. And then back to your question about regulations, I think it's... Because we aren't going to cities and saying, we need money to operate in your city, you know, we're not looking for a concession or looking for a business that requires government funding. We wanna operate in the ecosystem and operate in a way that is in the same standing as you know, vehicles have today. And that is a legitimate form of essential transportation, which we've now found post-pandemic as to be quite critical to people.
Jason Jacobs: And I guess taking a step higher [inaudible 00:28:05] level than just looking at micromobility and transportation. But if you just look at cities, it seems like prior to the pandemic, and I'm no expert on the up-to-date data, but that, that there was an influx of people moving into cities over the last many years. And it seems like during the pandemic, maybe things have been going the other way as people try to get to places where they, you know, they get out of studio apartments and things like that and get a little more space and, uh, you know, less people around and maybe you don't have to wear a mask all the time and, and things like that. What is your impression in terms of... What do you think the future of cities will be and what do you hope that the future of cities will be? And to what extent are those aligned or, or different?
Andrew Savage: Yeah. I mean, I still feel really strongly that the future of the city is bright. I think it's an incredibly important part of our community and our society to have well-functioning vibrant cities. So I think this pandemic is a bit of a blip, and I think that will massage over in, in the near future when we get past this. You know, it, cities can, if designed well, be an incredibly low carbon place to live, because you can live in a place where you work and can socialize in a place where you live and there's a really virtuous cycle there, and you can have very clean modes of transportation when you need it versus someone living out in the country, having to drive into town every time they want groceries or having to commute to work 40 or 80 miles, like that's not very good for the environment, from a resources perspective or from a carbon perspective.
So I think that the future of cities is really bright when you think about being really smart about how you design them and how you think about removing car dominance and thinking about how it brings cities back for the people in which they were originally designed. I think someone like mayor Hidalgo in Paris, she's developed this concept of the 15-minute city and it's a really progressive way of thinking about how cities can be designed around people, around having access to the things you need within 15 minutes in a low carbon way. I think that, if embraced is the future of urban life.
Jason Jacobs: And then in your wildest dreams, if micromobility spreads its wings and reaches its full potential, and if Lime spreads its wings and reaches its full potential, what does that future look like? And how does Lime and how does micromobility fit into that?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, well, I mean, 60% of all car trips are under five miles, and we view that sort of under five mile space as being perfect for forms of micromobility, until last week. We didn't actually have a, a mode that could actually cover that five miles. It's not the easiest thing for everybody to bike five miles or scoop five miles. So the introduction of the eMopeds for example, is helping us further achieve that sort of five mile direction. And I think we'll see continued innovation of products for people that have diverse needs within cities, that you're going to drop kids off at school or, or get groceries, et cetera. We need to think about continuously innovating for that distance. And so, you know, thinking about that five mile circumference or that distance. One, we need more modes. Two, thinking about working with our cities around a dramatic reuse of space.
And if we're good and smart about this, we can think about how to relegate cars in the place where they should be, which is not in the urban core of, of cities. We've seen a number of European cities and even some progressive cities in the United States. Think about how to prohibit combustion vehicles and in the future, personal vehicles in Downtown Core center. So I think there's, there's a real opportunity to reimagine how cities look. Cars going to the outside, zero carbon transportation on the inside and that would allow us to dramatically think about where are parks? And where is protected bike lanes? And where can we have affordable housing in a real, harmonious way?
Jason Jacobs: So does that mean that there's no world where there are EVs and Limes future?
Andrew Savage: I wouldn't say that. I, I definitely wouldn't say that. Although I would say it's not something that is in our near future or something they were actively pursuing at the moment. You know, one thing that I, that we feel really strongly about is the carbon-free commitment and the electrified commitment. You won't see us doing something that, that doesn't align with that mission.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. Great. And then if there were one thing that you could change that were completely outside of your control, that would most accelerate the adoption of micromobility, what would that thing be and what would you change about it?
Andrew Savage: Oh man, this one thing questions are tough because you know what? Immediately a whole list goes running through your head of things that you'd wanna modify. You know, I think that... I would think about something like as simple or maybe as wonky as congestion pricing. Like, how can we think about really capturing the externalities of our commitment to cars and cities in a way that motivates people to rethink how they live their life. And I'm not saying that it has to be a burden we've actually seen in the time of pandemic and lower congestion in cities. People were really loving to live in their communities. So I think that we need to be thinking about how does, how do policy mechanisms to your question earlier help bring along and account for the evils that happen with, with car use? And I have a car, so I'm not saying that it's all evil. I'm just saying that there's a place for them and if we can find a better innovation to move one or two miles in a city, we should be doing that.
Jason Jacobs: So how active, if at all, is Lime on the policy front and if you're active, in what ways does that manifest?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, that's a great question and I, I love the space. So, um, you'll have to cut me off if I go too long on this one [laughs]. But we're pretty active and I think we're continuing to find our voice on the sustainability in climate front. We recently launched a partnership with World Wildlife Fund WWF across 14 different countries, where one of the goals is to be leveraging our joint interest in civic action and helping people think about their, their modes of choice and also getting engaged in policy issues around lower carbon city living. And that's one example. I mean, we are a member of the, we are still in coalition and the EV100 as well, where we're advocating for policies that will help bring on more commercial electric vehicles, because that's a big way to move the needles is if you can electrify the commercial fleet in this country and across the globe.
So, you know, we're eager to get our hands dirty on policy issues that help think about and move the needle on, on reducing carbon pollution. And I think you'll see, as we mature, you'll see that continue to deepen. One thing that is really, I think, exciting and interesting is that we have tens of millions of people on our platform. And that is a real opportunity to align our carbon goals with their potential desire to, to be active on those issues. And so that's a potential that, that you could see it in the future as well.
Jason Jacobs: And I guess one question I f- I forgot to ask just in terms of how you go to market. So it sounds like you go in on a city-by-city basis. Is it something that the cities are actually providing as a service and do you need a formal partnership with the cities in order to set up shop?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, that's very typical. In the early days of the industry, it was the Wild West and no one, you know, most cities didn't know what the technology was and didn't know how to regulate it. Now, virtually every example that I can think of, cities are either choosing a few operators to operate in their city. Like Paris, for example, they chose three operators. Lime was chosen to operate in Paris, or they lay out the rules of the road and you operate within those rules of the road. It's typically regulated at the local or the mun- municipal level. Sometimes there are some state or provincial regulations that you have to follow as well, but typically it's done at the local level.
Jason Jacobs: And to the extent that there are commonalities, what is the biggest barrier or objection that you need to overcome when establishing new municipal relationships?
Andrew Savage: Yeah, I think one, if I'm not afraid to throw out there because anyone who has seen micromobility or heard of it will raise is the question of, is there clutter or isn't there clutter and you know, where are these things parked? And, you know, it comes up all the time. And a few things have happened that have helped with that, significantly. One is just simple technologies that we've been able to deploy, that have helped either educate riders on where to park or steer people to parking corrals. Another thing we do is we require riders to take pictures of their parked scooter or bike. So we know that they have both consciously parked in a place that's appropriate. And we also have the picture of it and we can use that for various things, potentially like AI and other innovations. That has helped a ton on the rider side. I also think that it has, as micromobility has become more commonplace in cities around the globe. Two things have happened.
One, is those who don't like micromobility, or just wanna cause ruckus tend to leave scooters and bikes alone. It's just, it's become a part of the fabric of these cities. So there's just less tampering and fewer issues. And secondly, cities are starting to carve out a little bit more space for micromobility. They've seen the carbon benefits, they have embraced the concept. And so they're saying, "okay, maybe we should make some space just like we do for cars or for, you know, personal bikes for micromobility." So all of those things are kind of melding together to make for a much more clutter-free and, and more organized micromobility system. Now the benefits of micromobility and dockless remain that you can find one via the smartphone and you can then park it at your destination. That's been the beauty of it, the convenience, and that that remains in almost all markets.
Jason Jacobs: And my, my last line of questioning is just around the fact that you started this company and didn't have an explicit sustainability role and then carved went out for yourself, mid-ride. And I think there's a lot of people, whether they're co-founders of companies or in functional roles of companies, whether they're startups or they're big companies who have climate change on their mind, wanna help, wanna see their companies get more active and don't really know how to go about it. So maybe just speak to those people for a minute. What do you want them to hear? What do you want them to know? What advice do you have for them in terms of how to bring about change within their companies?
Andrew Savage: Yeah. It's a great question. I think it's gonna vary company by company, but I think what it was, was embracing a broader mission of what we could accomplish as a company for our employees, for our customers, for our regulators in bringing it to the forefront of the company. I mean, we have, I haven't mentioned this before, but we've... Through the 200 million rides that we've served, we've prevented through our riders, 50 million car trips. One in every four trips on our platform have shifted modes from a car to a scooter or a bike. Those are real numbers and those are adding up quick, especially as we expand. And so I mentioned that as an example, because you can really sort of calculate and use the data to show there is an impact here, and we have a real potential to grow the business based on that impact.
And for those who are thinking about sustainability, I think it's finding your niche. And I think it's finding a space where you can carve out a sustainability practice. Where do you fit into the ecosystem of sustainability? Is it carbon reduction? Is it circularity? Is it impact and equity? Are there ways that you can think about as your business that you can say, all right, this is gonna be a mark on the world. And I would say go for it because I think everyone here wants to do good as well as form a good business. And I think that's a really important thing to be thinking about. And I would say that we wouldn't be able to think about this sustainability commitment that we have as aggressively as we are now, if we hadn't achieved the important milestone of being a profitable company.
And that was something that we still had work to do from an annual perspective, but Q3 of 2020 was profitable and that has given us some breathing room to say, "okay, we are gonna make it. We need to figure out how to have a strong impact on the world." And those paired together make a really strong potential of impact in the future.
Jason Jacobs: Andrew, awesome to have you on the show, love's already more about the Lime story and about micromobility, and we even covered policy and future of cities and what people should do, who are feeling kind of motivated within their companies on how to bring about driving action in those companies. So I don't have anything else to say other than best of luck to you and the team. And thanks again for coming on the show.
Andrew Savage: It's really been great, Jason. Thanks for the, the leadership on this space and, and all the great questions and for doing the work that you're doing.
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note, that is .co not .com. Someday we'll get to .com, but right now .co. You can also find me on Twitter @JayJacobs22, where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And, before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving your review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that, thank you.
