BOULDER, CO — The Bicycle Product Suppliers Association (BPSA) and the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) are working together to look at identifying and implementing best practices in environmental and social responsibility in bicycle manufacturing.
OIA has developed guidelines in partnership with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, called the Higg Index, for apparel, and it is now looking to expand beyond apparel and footwear into the hardware side of the business. And it has asked the BPSA to participate with it as it develops these guidelines.
“The OIA gave a webinar presentation to the bike industry explaining how the program was developed for apparel. And we plan to have another presentation in January,” said Ray Keener, BPSA’s executive director.
The Higg Index is a tool enabling companies to evaluate material types, products, facilities and processes based on a range of environmental and product design choices. The index asks questions to gauge environmental sustainability and drive behavior for improvement.
“Both the outgoing BPSA president, Chris Speyer, and the incoming president, Roger Gierhart, are pretty excited about BPSA investigating working with the OIA on these issues,” Keener said.
The BPSA is planning a session at the Bicycle Leadership Conference in April with the OIA on sustainable business practices, and the associations want to introduce those interested in the bike industry to the OIA’s work in this area prior to that meeting.
