Bike commuting

The average commute at VAUDE is 14 kilometers. That adds up to over 1.3 million km of commuting annually!

Our goal is to ensure that as few of them as possible are driven by one person alone in a car. We provide specific incentives to get to work by bike, carpool or bus. And reward that with our Mobility Lotto.

VAUDE reports on all harmful emissions in its annual climate audit. We offset all commuting emissions with climate protection projects. Read more about it here.

This shows us that employee mobility for business travel and commuting is one of the biggest causes of harmful emissions at VAUDE. This makes it clear that we have an urgent need for action and just how important corporate mobility management is.

Since 2012, VAUDE has worked intensively on the issue of commuting and mobility management – not least because parking spaces on the premises have become very scarce.

Instead of investing in more parking, VAUDE is relying on infrastructure and incentives for increasing the number of employees who bike commute (for the eco benefits and for the health benefits), come by bus or carpool to work. We have eliminated another 65 parking spaces during the office remodeling in recent years. In their place, we have designed a green campus with a climbing wall and the most modern meeting rooms. Read more here.

The VAUDE Mobility Concept consists of six components to motivate our employees to be as environmentally friendly as possible. One of them is "Bike Commuting.”

A real bicycle garage, a repair workshop with an inner tube vending machine and tools, courses on riding technique and repairs, changing rooms and showers - we try to make cycling to work as appealing as possible for our employees.

In addition, and employee can use one of our company's own e-bikes free of charge. Employees' private e-bikes can also be "refueled" on site free of charge.

Since 2015, all VAUDE employees have been able to take advantage of the “JobRad” scheme. This is where the same tax code for company cars (so-called 1 %-rule) applies to bicycles and e-bikes. And it applies to all employees, regardless of their access to a company car. VAUDE is collaborating with two providers: JobRad and Lease-a-Bike. More than 60 VAUDE employees have used the program to acquire new, high-quality bikes for their daily commute.

In our hilly surroundings that are challenging even for ambitious cyclists, the biggest potential for energy and emissions savings comes from carpooling.

VAUDE has therefore set up its own company group on the social mobility network, flinc. So employees can quickly and easily offer rides or find rides, free of charge.

We do not check how many trips are made using the platform – after all, getting to work is a private matter for the employees. We reward car-pooling – no matter how colleagues arrange it – with car-pooling parking spaces right at our doorstep and of course with our Mobility Lotto.

But we use flinc for business car-pooling, for example at trade fairs or larger VAUDE events away from our headquarters. This way, all company cars are fully occupied.

The village of Obereisenbach near Tettnang, where the VAUDE company headquarters are located, has long been difficult to reach by public transport. VAUDE wasn’t willing to accept these conditions and therefore initiated a project – the Bähnlelinie.

On October 1, 2013 the Regional Transport Association Bodensee-Oberschwaben (bodo), with the support of the administrative district Bodenseekreis and a local bus company, established a commuter line that connects Obereisenbach to the nearest train station in Meckenbeuren as well as to Tettnang’s urban transport grid.

Since April 2018, it now offers continuous hourly service between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., as well as perfect connections to the Tettnang city bus and the BOB train at Meckenbeuren station.

Most of our employees from the Tettnang area and even many of them from Friedrichshafen and Ravensburg are well connected by rail. We strongly encourage bus travel from the VAUDE side and are curious to see how much the Bähnle line will be used by our employees.

Our goal is to reduce emissions from travel (for business and commuting) by 10 % by the year 2020 (base year 2015). How far have we come? Here is the answer.