See.Sense Sustainability In 7 Steps

As a growing technology company, we are committed to doing all that we can to help minimise our impact on the environment while creating great products for cyclists. If you are reading this, you might have already heard about ‘Tree Sense’, our Tree planting initiative - but with ‘Lean’ being one of our key company values for the past 7 years, there are lots of things we are continually changing in the way we go about our business for the better - all to do our bit to help cultivate a cleaner planet. 

There might be some initiatives you haven’t heard about before, so we thought we would round up our 7 key sustainability steps in one blog post to share:

🌳 1. TREE SENSE

We have been working with WeForest since 2014, helping plant trees across the world. We even planted almost 2,500 trees in a not-for-profit Kickstarter campaign. We can’t take all the credit though, now, our customers can plant trees from £2 when they place an order on our website too. In total we have planted 7,500 trees to date and you can learn more about this here.

It is great to be involved with such a fantastic charity. We love the work WeForest does throughout the world and we are only too happy to support them.

🚨 2. SERVICE MAINTENANCE

This is something we have been offering to our customers for a while - but lots of people might not know about it! 

All See.Sense lights are built to last & come with a free two-year warranty. However, our ‘Service Maintenance’ gives cyclists who are outside of the warranty period a complete overhaul of their light to bring it back to full factory standards (or indeed upgrade it for a small cost), ensuring the light can go on to perform brilliantly. 

🚴‍♂️ 3. TESTING

Do you remember Kevin, our testing bike? Some of our customers got a little bit frustrated at the fact that we simply have bikes for ‘testing only’, worried that they might go to waste in the end - but that’s not what happens! The Adsum Foundation gather bikes from the local community & send them over to Madagascar to help people get around (bikes are the core of the transport network there).

Kevin the bike had a much needed makeover and then made its way to Madagascar with Adsum. It's great to see Judicael Alicette Fanja getting about on Kevin (beneficiary of bike) today: "I’m really grateful for this bike as I have to travel far for work. It enables to me to be on time for work, and to realise my tasks properly." Fanja works as an Administrative officer of Ifanadiana Primary School. 

♻️ 4. TRADE IN DEALS

Recently we were delighted to introduce our new and highly requested Trade-In-To-Upgrade Deals for cyclists where anyone can trade-in their old bike lights (which are donated to the Adsum Charity) and all brands are accepted. Cyclists get more for their money when upgrading to See.Sense reactive lights, and are doing a good thing by trading in their old (working) bike lights. We also plant a tree with every upgrade order placed. You can learn more about this here.

📦  5. REDUCING OUR CO2 FOOTPRINT THROUGH THE DESIGN OF OUR MATERIALS

With each product we make, we try to reduce the size and more importantly, the amount of plastic used (& no one wants to receive an unnecessary amount packaging, do they?). ACE and ICON2 lights are also small enough to fit through your letterbox, so if you are out there are no multiple delivery attempts.

We have also launched our ECO packaging, which was requested by our customers and is used for ACE and ICON2. It has been featured as a best practice by Cycling Industry Europe who have launched an industry wide sustainable packaging pledge, read more here.

🔧  6. MANUFACTURING LOCALLY WHERE POSSIBLE 

Our team is based in Northern Ireland, we design our products in-house, and manufacture all of our ACE and ICON2 lights locally, about 15 miles from our office. Our packaging for these lights is manufactured locally too.
By manufacturing locally, we help to reduce travel miles for freighting of goods, and save CO2.

Did you know? The hexagonal design of See.Sense lights is inspired from the Giants Causeway.


Above: See.Sense ACE and ICON2, the current lighting range is manufactured in Northern Ireland.

🚴‍♀️ 7. CYCLING!

The last one is simple. The more cars we can get off the road, the better it will be for the environment. We love cycling, it's good for us & for our environment. When you choose to cycle rather than jump in the car you are helping reduce emissions. It might seem small, but can you imagine the difference that would be made if everyone chose to cycle more and drive less? Here at See.Sense we offer the Cycle To Work Scheme for our team members and support this in as many ways as we can.

So, next time you’re out riding with your See.Sense lights, give yourself a pat on the back as not only are you reducing transport emissions, you’re also helping to create a cleaner future.