by Ben Haworth 3 hours ago 14

A report from Starling is the result of a deep dive into how it runs as a business and how it can operate more sustainably.

It’s worth reading the full report (link to PDF) as it does detail that aspects that shipping things by air freight is possibly the main thing to avoid, regardless of what the item is made from.

Starling Cycles Published Environmental Footprint and Assessment Policy

It includes some particularly interesting findings with regards to steel versus carbon frame manufacturing.

Starling Cycles, the UK-based manufacturer of single-pivot, steel full suspension frames, has just published its first Environmental Footprint Assessment and Policy, which includes a comparison between steel and carbon frames.

The new Assessment and Policy (click to view PDF) is the result of an audit into how Starling operates and the impact that it has on the environment.

Brand owner Joe McEwan looked at both ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ aspects of Starling’s business. This includes the manufacturing process in their Bristol-based workshop and any work that is outsourced eg. powder coating. He assessed the impacts of moving products in and out of Starling and the lifecycle of his frames, through to the end of their useable life with consideration for repair and recycling if required.

McEwan said: “A small number of brands are taking environmental impact seriously right now, but many just don’t seem to acknowledge it. Our products encourage people to spend time in nature; to ignore our impact on the environment just doesn’t sit right. This process is the first step in helping us understand how sustainably we operate as a business and what we need to do to improve”.

Starling’s evaluation also extends to its suppliers, assessing their impact on the brand’s environmental footprint. Reynolds Tubing, the brand’s tubing supplier, took inspiration from the process and followed Starling’s model to undertake their own assessment. This created one of the highlight good news stories of the process, finding that all of Reynold’s steel comes from recycled raw materials. Reynolds will publish its own survey in the near future.

Starling also worked with the National Composites Centre to undertake a broad comparison of steel vs carbon frame manufacturing. The study found that production of carbon fibre bicycle frames emits 16X more CO2 than steel bicycle frames. McEwan said: “If you bring together the lower emissions of manufacturing alongside the increased toughness, longevity and repairability of steel it makes for a really compelling case for steel bikes. If you care about the environmental impact of your frame, it seems like it’s hard to argue with steel”.

Starling’s Environmental Footprint Assessment and Policy is, by the brand’s own admission, just a first step in a larger process. A significant finding of the assessment is that Starling should reduce its reliance on air-freighting products, both in and out of the business. Starling will now invest effort into working out how to answer that challenge, most likely increasing work with overseas distributors and dealers and moving to land or sea freight as an alternative.

McEwan concludes by saying “We’ve learned a lot from this process but in many cases, the answers aren’t straightforward. We’ve identified areas for improvement and now we need to find out how to make those changes”.

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I fully approve of any company taking an interest and at least trying to improve. But there is some questionable statements in that.

Its a stretch to claim bottled gas is only a concern at the local and operator scale, ITs extracted from a non renewable source, its processed and its transported

Since when has carbon not been repairable or tough? It’s cool with me to have a steel bike (all i own) I’d love a starling, I’m on board with steel over carbon fibre for a number of reasons mincluding the lack of recycling (and even then I haven’t read up on whats possible against what is practical against what is affordable).

So why make statements that only lessen your argument by being untrue?

Ultimately and this isn’t a dig at Starling its prevalent throughout so many industies. Teh carbon foot print full stop is a problem when we consider luxury items. Much talk of longevity of steel but its being used in a bike that has a life of how long until its obsolete? How many starlings will be ridden from the door? How many starlings will be ridden by people with other bikes that are a bit older but still functional?

I would still love a starling though.

So why make statements that only lessen your argument by being untrue?

Probably because they decided the conclusion before putting the argument together….

Same as any other infomercial article.

Hey, it’s cheaper than journalism!

Much talk of longevity of steel but its being used in a bike that has a life of how long until its obsolete?

Feel free to pass on your ‘obsolete’ bikes this way and I can ensure they are used until they genuinely do need to be recycled.

Fair dues to Starling for having done the work on this in the first place.

Much talk of longevity of steel but its being used in a bike that has a life of how long until its obsolete? How many starlings will be ridden from the door? How many starlings will be ridden by people with other bikes that are a bit older but still functional?

None of that undermines the point that a steel frame or fork, all interfaces and standards being equal, should have a number of times lower CO2 cost than the carbon version. The bike brand isn’t responsible for the rider’s rate of consumption or need to drive to ride. They’re responsible for the product they make and the people they work with and employ, that’s about it, and a brand making frames in the UK from Reynolds tubes has a lower impact than a brand making carbon equivalents and shipping them in from Asia.

That doesn’t seem like a good reason to choose steel, just a good reason to choose not-carbon.

What about alu? mg? bamboo? wood?

Difficult to recycle old bamboo or wood into a bike frame and then reuse it again for something else after it has been a bike frame. Same for carbon.

Carbon Fibre made in some parts of Europe can have less than 1% of the emissions footprint of Carbon made in Asia:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/carbon-fiber-production-almost-zero-co2-emissions-hans-hansson

Do we known how UK recycled steel tubing e.g. that sourced by Starling, stacks up against the lowest CO2 forms of Carbon Fibre?

Likewise, has Starling factored in the CO2 footprint of the industrial gasses they use to weld their frames?

Having said that, fair play to Starling for looking at the impact of their operations – it’s something that all companies should be doing.

Mine’s a Murmur Trail.

A report from Starling is the result of a deep dive

The bike brand isn’t responsible for the rider’s rate of consumption or need to drive to ride.

no but the industry (as i quite clearly pointed out) does. It sells new standards as neccesary and it removes support for old.

I’ll take your point though you are absolutely right.

They’re responsible for the product they make and the people they work with and employ, that’s about it, and a brand making frames in the UK from Reynolds tubes has a lower impact than a brand making carbon equivalents and shipping them in from Asia.

and they are also responsible as everyone is for not lying. and there are lies intentional or through lack of effort in that pamphlet.

I’m not singling starling out but they could easily make a valid point without cheapening it.

Having said that, fair play to Starling for looking at the impact of their operations – it’s something that all companies should be doing.

Or is it just marketing blurb and they don’t actually GAF?

Footflaps, do you really think they would go to that level purely for marketing BS? They are not some big moneyed corporation with oodles of marketing budget to splash on this type of thing!

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