Responsibility

We’ve built a history of outreach because if we hadn’t, we’d be silly.  Cycling is a way to organize a life but as a general rule, cyclists are selfish.  The MetLife Cycling team powered by groSolar has a number outreach initiatives designed to ground our team as the exception to this rule.  Our charity work with the city of Loudon in conjunction with the Turtle Pond race has raised over $5000 for education.  Our green initiatives push us towards commuting and eco-living. The MetLife Cycling Team are 350athletes, ambassadors to the 350.org cause, an internet-driven, grassroots effort in climate change activism.  Founded in 2008, by super activist and cyclist Bill McKibben, 350 stands for a goal: the parts per million of CO2 that stabilize the atmosphere. 350.org’s mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis–to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.  Currently the planet is at 387 ppm with ice caps melting, storm intensity increasing, and a rising concern for the future.  The MetLife cycling team is promoting the October 10th, 2010 day of work for 350.org along with a host of other elite and professional athletes.   Similarly, our partner Brighter Planet helps people reduce and manage their carbon footprints. Its engaging web-based campaigns tap the power of social media to help consumers and businesses learn about emissions, conserve what they can, and offset the rest. Brighter Planet carbon offset products fund only the most reputable climate change projects, demonstrating direct community and social value while reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses being pumped into the atmosphere. To date, the company’s members have offset over 100 million pounds of CO2.  Some of those pounds belong to the MetLife team.  In addition to providing insights into how MetLife cycling could be more efficient, Brighter Planet has inventoried the team’s season-long campaign and offset it.  Our partners at Trek are in on the greening as well, recently they adopted the basic principles of Eco Design, which uses the proven OKALA method to score an item’s impact on the environment from its origin to usage and eventual end of life. Trek describes it this way, “In other words, if we think about a product in terms of its lifecycle — with its own birth, life, and its eventual end — we then begin to understand how it impacts the world around us.”  Trek was the first manufacturer in Wisconsin to switch entirely to renewable electric power. “We used to burn 10.5 million pounds of coal each year. Now we burn 0. We’ve undertaken smaller-scale changes, too, like converting our entire Waterloo facility to low-energy-consumption lighting.”  Trek is pushing the bicycle as more than a toy or a pastime, but a vehicle for social change.  We believe that too.  Bike racing is a privilege and one we intend to leverage.  Watch this team press forward a life organized by sport, a life lived responsibly.