Tetra Tech Employees Rack up the Kilometers in Biggest International Bike to Work Week Event

As part of Tetra Tech’s Sustainability Program, the company challenges employees from around the world to park their cars and cycle to work each May.

As part of Tetra Tech’s 2017 International Bike to Work Week (BTWW) Challenge, 466 employees pedaled 28,337 kilometers in 67 cities across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Japan! This year’s competition saw a 70 percent increase in riders, with 38 full teams (5 riders or more) and several smaller teams and individual riders participating. Our dedicated cyclists braved various types of inclement weather—from rainstorms in New Zealand to hot temperatures in Southern California—remembering to stay safe and hydrated.

Congratulations to our team from Perth, Western Australia, who took home the coveted BTWW trophy with a combination of participation and distance! Perth Pedal Pushers team members made an average of 7.8 trips to or from work during their BTWW and logged 2,694.71 total kilometers.

Tetra Tech’s International BTWW Challenge aims to introduce bicycle commuting to more employees, showing them that reducing carbon emissions by using alternate commuting methods is possible—and even easy. Each BTWW team selects one work week during May to see how many kilometers they can log, and members compete for both team and individual prizes. Our scoring formula incentivizes both high levels of participation and participation by new commuters to help spread a love of biking to work. This year we even had a team from Newark, Delaware, composed exclusively of new bike commuters!

Tetra Tech’s 28,337 kilometers (17,608 miles) ridden means that our cyclists collectively saved about 3,332.6 liters (880.4 gallons) of gas and kept the equivalent of about 7.8 metric tons CO₂e from being added to the atmosphere! The CO₂ emission is the equivalent of what is produced by 1.1 passenger vehicles driven for one full year. They burned about 963,452 calories in total—the equivalent of 3,380 slices of pepperoni pizza or 6,432 cans of regular soda.

Employee participation in Tetra Tech’s International BTWW Challenge is part of the company’s sustainability goals for 2020. Participation in this year’s competition almost surpassed our goal of reaching 40 teams by 2020—a 20 percent increase in participation over our 2016 baseline.

“At the end of last year’s competition, I challenged our participants to ‘blow the doors off of 20,000 kilometers’ for our 2017 competition—and wow, we really did it!” said Kevin Axt of Tetra Tech’s BTWW Challenge organizing committee. “I am amazed and excited to see the level of enthusiasm within the company for the BTWW Challenge. Congratulations to the 2017 winners and to each and every rider who participated this year. Hope everyone continues riding—both for fun and also for commuting—and we’ll see you all again next year!”