My name is Renée van Hout, and I am a cyclist. Cycling is often seen as an environmentally friendly sport, but how green is it really? In this series, I explore the hidden environmental costs of (professional) cycling—from bike production to travel gear consumption, and more. By shedding light on these overlooked aspects, I hope to spark conversation and take small steps toward a more sustainable sport.
In the last article of this series I dive into the impact of kit and food.
Kit
Last year I watched a stage of the Tour de France Femmes in Rotterdam. I was visiting a former teammate and was shook by the fact that most teams had made a new cycling kit just for the 8 days of racing. My friend received three race suits, two bib shorts, two jerseys, a long-sleeve jersey, three pairs of socks, a time trial suit, and three pairs of gloves—just for one week.
If not for a Grand Tour, a cycling team produces new kit annually, as the sponsors usually change. At my former club team, we usually had the same kit for two of three seasons, in the continental level it changes yearly. Officially, I’m only supposed to wear my team’s clothing, which means my old kit is sidelined. Some of it, like bib shorts, wears out quickly and is not easy to pass on. I also receive off-bike apparel that we are required to wear before and after races.
Sometimes I forget, but cycling clothing is also part of fast fashion. Fast fashion contributes about 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with the textile industry generating around 1.2 billion tons of CO₂ annually.55 This is more than the emissions from all international flights and maritime shipping combined. Cumulatively, the fashion industry produces about 20% of global waste water. Furthermore, 85% of textiles end up in landfills or are incinerated when most of these materials could be reused. The industry relies mostly on non-renewable resources, consuming 98 million tons of materials each year, including oil for synthetic fibers, fertilizers for cotton, and various chemicals for dyeing and finishing. Textile production also uses around 93 billion cubic meters of water annually, which creates stress in water-scarce regions.56 20% of industrial water pollution globally is attributable to the dyeing and treatment of textiles, which in turn impacts local communities by polluting rivers used for fishing, drinking or bathing.57
Working conditions in textile production are another issue, with low wages, long hours, and unsafe practices common in many parts of the world. In some cases, even child labor and modern slavery still exist.
It takes an incredible 2,700 liters of water and almost a kilogram of hazardous chemicals to make just one t-shirt, and that is for a relatively natural (albeit not organic) cotton product. When you start dealing with man-made, plastic-based materials, such as the types of Lycra and polyesters, the potential harm to ecology becomes even more acute.
↣ ↢
I checked which materials my cycling clothing was made out of. The first thing I found was my Gabba. “100% polyester,” it said in the label. My bib shorts: 80% polyester, 20% elastane. The same for my shirt. Polyester is a plastic-based material, made from the non-renewable petroleum. It is the most widely used fiber in the world. Polyester’s relative cheapness has fueled the growth of the fast fashion world. The production is an energy-intensive process requiring large amounts of crude oil and releasing chemicals and acid gases like hydrogen chloride. These emissions pollute the water and the air, and this can lead to or worsen health problems that affect the lungs and breathing; from coaching to conditions like asthma and bronchitis.58 The top sources of crude oil are (in order) Saudi Arabia, Russia, the U.S., China, Iraq and Iran, and producing plastic-based fibers is estimated to use 342 million barrels of oil every year. With every wash, polyester sheds small pieces of plastic, microplastics, into our water and air. The microplastics are ingested by marine life, animals and even us. A half million tons of plastic microfibers are shed into the oceans annually during the washing of plastic-based textiles.59 Studies are on the way to understand the problems and its impacts on human, animal and environmental health, but what they have found right now just shows the toxic is not good for our health.60 As an oil-based plastic, polyester does not biodegrade like natural fibers. It stays in landfill for several decades at least – and potentially for hundreds of years.
Elastane, also known as spandex or Lycra, is also derived from petroleum. Consequently, it is also non-biodegradable and energy-intensive to produce. It can be difficult to recycle due to its elasticity and blending with other fibers. Nylon, another material that is often used for cycling clothing, is another synthetic polymer, primarily derived from fossil fuels, that does not break down easily, contributing to long-term solution. Nylon manufacturing releases nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas 310 times more potent than CO2.61
Merino wool, on the other hand, comes from sheep, which are shorn annually, making it a renewable source. It is 100% biodegradable and typically involves fewer chemicals compared to synthetic fibers. The garments often require less frequent washing, saving water and energy.62
↣ ↢
Shoes are also made of synthetic materials. In addition, high performance cycling shoes nowadays are partly made of carbon (usually the sole). As discussed in “Bikes,” the production of carbon fiber involves energy-intensive processes, leading to significant carbon dioxide emissions. It’s not bio-degradable, and the manufacturing process involves chemicals that can be harmful if not managed properly. The combination of synthetics with carbon fibers makes recycling challenging.
I remember, as a kid, my mother used to bring her shoes to the shoemaker in our town if it broke. Today, this shoemaker doesn’t exist anymore. The shift towards mass production in the footwear industry has led to decline of traditional shoemaking. Large-scale manufacturing allows companies to produce shoes quickly and cheaply, and the economic pressures of globalization mean that it is often cheaper to buy new shoes than to repair old ones.63
Plastic cleats contribute to microplastic pollution as they break down into smaller particles. We usually need a couple of those in a year. The pedals and cleats are not interchangeable among the several different systems. This has its function, but it means needing different shoes, cleats and pedals if you’re doing different disciplines.
↣ ↢
What can we do as individuals?
- Extend the life of your cycling gear by caring for it, repairing it when needed, and using it for as long as possible. When buying new items, consider brands that prioritize sustainability, and explore smaller companies that may tackle challenges differently from larger ones.
- The biggest impact will be made individually by consuming less. So, ask yourself before a purchase, do I really need it?
- Professionals can hand out their old clothing to good initiatives, so it can have a second life.
What can teams do?
- Choose wisely what amounts to give to riders, a lot of professional cyclists get clothing they never even use.
- Ask riders before purchasing or producing clothes what kind of clothes they prefer and what sizes they wear, so you don't get stuck with loads of clothing.
- Cooperate with sustainable cycling clothing brands, who prioritize quality over quantity. The brand has to be transparent about its production.
- Limit the cycling clothing to maximum one new design a year, so no special designs for Grand Tours. If the sponsors stay the same the next year, reuse the clothing you already have.
- For free wear clothing I wonder how much is necessary, it is even necessary? If so, make use of it as long as possible.
Food
For my endurance ride today I consumed four Snelle Jelle’s and one Sultana biscuit. I filled my bidons with nutrition from a plastic box. On a weekly basis I throw away a lot of plastic wrappers. In races, gel consumption for 90-120g carbs per hour adds even more plastic waste. I surely use way more plastic than my non-cycling family members.
In an interview with Le Figaro, Guillaume Martin says; “I also try to reduce waste. When I'm racing, it's complicated. But when I'm training, I make myself rice cakes and reuse the packaging. And I stop at the bakery. It's the little things."64 A great initiative, but for most, making their own nutrition isn’t realistic.
As a smaller continental team, we used our bidons throughout the season. Our soigneurs would wash them out, but as this is a lot of work, bigger teams do not usually do this. Many teams use bidons once (during races), leading to 630,000 bottles discarded yearly in pro cycling. EF Education-EasyPost men’s team and the EF Education-TIBCO-SVB women’s team (team names in 2022) alone goes through 34,000 bottles per season. That is 755 bottles per rider per year – over two per day per rider. Rouleur suggests that “a few are picked up by fans at the side of the road, but the reality is that not every race is well attended by spectators, especially in the waste or feed zone areas where bottles are commonly dropped.”65 After a race, volunteers scour the course to collect any remaining litter, but it is inevitable that some bidons and wrappers will remain on the side of the road or be blown away by the wind.
As a result of their calculations, Cannondale (from the EF-Education teams) developed a 100 percent compostable bottle, which disintegrates within three months. Still, the production of these bidons unnecessarily contribute to the cycling footprint, if they are perfectly suitable for using multiple times. Most bidons are made of different types of plastic, like high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), and polypropylene.
Half of the 300 million tons of plastic produced yearly is single-use, like my bar and gel wrappers. The production of single-use plastics involves the extraction and processing of fossil fuels, which emits large amounts of greenhouse gases. Plastics sent to landfills contribute to methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas. As plastics break down, they form microplastics, which can be ingested by wildlife and enter the food chain. A significant amount of plastic waste ends up in the oceans, creating large floating masses of plastic. This pollution harms marine life and contributes to the overall degradation of marine ecosystems. Plastics do not decompose and can persist in the environment for hundreds of years, contributing to long-term pollution.66
The production, use and waste management of plastics generate about 4% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. The plastics industry is the fastest growing source of industrial greenhouse gases in the world. If we go on like we do now, the plastics lifecycle could be responsible for 19% of global greenhouse emissions by 2040. This would make the goal of holding global average temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius out of reach. Only 1-1.5% of plastics are bio-based, and less than 10% is recycled.67 So, even though I come across many ads that promote their products as recycled or bio-based, this is just a fraction of the whole industry.
Shift Cycling Culture interviewed brands reducing their environmental impact. They asked Firepot, a company for dehydrated meals for outdoor pursuits, what their biggest challenges have been.
Founder, John Fisher, answered: "Packaging is probably the biggest challenge so far. There is not yet a defined and well-policed set of criteria for genuinely environmentally friendly packaging. Words like ‘recyclable’, ‘eco-friendly’, ‘compostable’ and ‘biodegradable’ are used across the industry but it is only when you really dig deep into the science that you find out that these terms are often misleading or mean very little.”68
As cyclists, we also need a lot more food than someone working at a desk the whole day. That means more rice, potatoes, pasta, veggies, but usually also more meat, fish and dairy products. About a third of all human-cause greenhouse gas emissions is linked to food, and the largest chunk comes from agriculture and land use. Ruminant animals like cows produce methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than CO2 over 100 years.69 Furthermore, two thirds of agricultural land are used for grazing and feed production. Agricultural expansion results in the conversion of forests, grasslands and other carbon ‘sinks’ into monotone cropland or pasture. 36% of crops go to animal feed, but only 12% becomes human food, because of the metabolic waste.70 Animal farming also comes with enormous water use and waste. It takes approximately 15,400 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef. This includes water for drinking, feed crops, and processing.71
If we grew plant foods directly for human consumption, we would need less than a quarter of the agricultural land we use today and would cut food’s climate emissions and water pollution in half.72 Soybeans are an example. The beans are perfectly suitable for human consumption and provide a good meat alternative due to their high amount of protein, but around 70-90% globally is used for animal feed. Large areas of forests are cleared to make way for its production. This leads to habitat loss, biodiversity decline and increased carbon emissions.73
Animal protein is standard in pro cycling, but research supports plant-based performance. With proper planning, even fully vegan diets can meet the needs of athletes.74 Eating more plant-based efficiently cuts our carbon footprint. A study from the University of Oxford found that eating vegan can cut our footprint from food by up to 70%.75
Food waste also happens quite frequently during training camps and stage races. The energy, water and other resources used to produce, process, and transport food are for nothing when the food is not consumed. When food waste ends up in landfills, it decomposes and produces methane. Food waste is responsible for about 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.76
↣ ↢
What can we do as individuals?
- Eating more plant-based is a great way to reduce your footprint.
- Limit your food waste.
- Limit plastic waste. Guillaume Martin mentioned he usually makes his sports nutrition himself when he is at home. There are plenty of recipes for rice bars, oat bars, date bars to make yourself.
What can teams do?
- Wash bidons, and reuse them.
- Try to work with brands that make use of biodegradable or other more sustainable types of packaging.
- Offer vegetarian/ vegan food.
- Educate riders about vegetarian/vegan meals suited for professional cyclists so they have an alternative.
A call to the government is to subsidize meat alternatives. If the meat alternatives stay this expensive, eating more plant based is not attractive. It also makes eating plant based as something for the elite.
So, now what?
It can feel overwhelming to consider the global impact this sport has on the planet. From time to time I get overwhelmed by the fear of climate change. It is scary to face the problems, rather than go on with daily life. Sometimes I feel hopeless being just one person.
But I think it is empowering to think of ways that we can individually take action to have a positive impact. Small actions add up. Throughout this series, I’ve shared ways individuals, teams, and brands can make a difference. Most importantly, we need to educate ourselves and those around us—because awareness is the first step toward change. The more people who recognize cycling’s environmental footprint, the more pressure we can collectively put on organizations to take real action.
So, what one step will you take today?
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Deena Blacking and Leah Kirchmann for their help in writing this series, for their valuable insight and feedback on the earlier drafts of this paper.
Sources:
[1] "Why Offsets Don't Work: New Analysis." Climate Analytics, 2021, https://climateanalytics.org/press-releases/why-offsets-dont-work-new-analysis.
[2] “UN Helps Fashion Industry Shift to Low Carbon.” United Nations Climate Change, 6 Sept. 2018https://unfccc.int/news/un-helps-fashion-industry-shift-to-low-carbon#:~:text=The%20fashion%20industry%2C%20including%20the,aviation%20and%20shipping%20industry%20combined
[3] Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future”, 2017,https://www.circularonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/A-New-Textiles-Economy_Full-Report.pdf
[4] Kant, R. “Textile dyeing industry: An environmental hazard”, Natural Science, Vol. 4, 1 (2012), p.23
[5] Claudio, Luz. “Waste couture: environmental impact of the clothing industry.” Environmental health perspectives vol. 115,9 (2007), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1964887/
[6] Ellen MacArthur Foundation, A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion’s future (2017).
[7] L. Yue. “Potential Health Impacts of Microplastics: A Review of Environmental Distribution, Human Exposure, and Toxic Effects.” Environment & Health, 2023 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/envhealth.3c00052
[8] Velden, Natascha M., et al. "LCA Benchmarking Study on Textiles Made of Cotton, Polyester, Nylon, Acryl, or Elastane." Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 60, no. 4, 2013, pp. 365-374. doi:10.1007/s11367-013-0626-91
[9] Popescu, Crisan, and Michaela Dina Stanescu. "Eco-Friendly Processing of Wool and Sustainable Valorization of This Natural Bioresource." Sustainability, vol. 16, no. 11, 2024, pp. 4661. doi:10.3390/su16114661
[10] "Shoemaking." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoemaking
[11] "Avec Sa Sensibilité Écologique, Le Cycliste Guillaume Martin Prend Conscience De Son Empreinte Environnementale Au Tour De France." Le Figaro, 28 June 2023, https://www.lefigaro.fr/sports/cyclisme/tour-de-france/tour-de-france-2023-la-culpabilite-du-coureur-guillaume-martin-par-rapport-au-climat-20230628.
[12] Jary, Rachel. “755 Bidons per rider per year: how to solve cycling’s water bottle problem,” Rouleur,https://www.rouleur.cc/blogs/the-rouleur-journal/755-bidons-per-rider-per-year-how-to-solve-cycling-s-water-bottle-problem?srsltid=AfmBOopCQ7GJAzYhfstLNa1ugXc7-ntatYd8nGB9hgs6rkP2s1eKsoaZ
[13] Vasarhelyi, Kayla. "Impact of Plastic on Climate Change." Environmental Center, University of Colorado Boulder, 15 Dec. 2023, https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2023/12/15/impact-plastic-climate-change.
[14] “A New Plastics Economy is Needed to Protect the Climate,” UN Climate Change News, 6 March 2024,https://unfccc.int/news/a-new-plastics-economy-is-needed-to-protect-the-climate#:~:text=Not%20only%20is%20plastic%20waste,total%20global%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions.
[15] "5 Questions for Firepot." Shift Cycling Culture, https://www.shiftcyclingculture.com/post/5-questions-for-firepot.
[16] Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. "Greenhouse Gas Emissions." Our World in Data, 2021,https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions.
[17] Cassidy, Emily S., et al. "Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare."Environmental Research Letters, vol. 8, no. 3, 2013, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034015/pdf.
[18] "The Devastating Water Footprint of Animal Agriculture." Open Access Government, 27 Oct. 2023, https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/devastating-water-footprint-animal-agriculture/163485/.
[19] Poore, Joseph, and Thomas Nemecek. "Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers." Science, vol. 360, no. 6392, 2018, pp. 987-992, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325532198_Reducing_food%27s_environmental_impacts_through_producers_and_consumers.
[20] "Soy." WWF Global, World Wide Fund for Nature, https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/food_practice/sustainable_production/soy/
[21] Lis, Dimitry M., et al. "Exploring the Impact of Vegan and Vegetarian Diets on Athlete Performance and Recovery."Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, vol. 14, 2017, p. 29, https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0192-9.
[22] Springmann, Marco, et al. "Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change co-benefits of dietary change." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 113, no. 15, 2016, pp. 4146-4151,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523119113.
[23] "UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021." United Nations Environment Programme, 2021, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021.