Eco-friendly bicycles & E-bikes

Find ethical bicycles and e-bikes

This guide covers a wide range of bike types, with most bike companies on our score table making children’s bikes, urban and mountain bikes, and electric. We’ve also included some which specialise in folding bikes and cargo bikes.

We cover the most widely available brands and have compared the companies on various ethical and sustainable issues from climate to tax and conflict minerals to complicity with the Israeli regime. We also look at where new bikes are made, recent successes tackling forced labour in Taiwan, and which companies have anything to say about harms caused by mining minerals for electric bikes.

The bike sector, like many others, has a thriving secondhand and repair market, and we discuss rental and subscription bike schemes, as well as options for passing on a bike to another user when you no longer want it. Finally, we look at overcoming barriers to cycling.

Which bike brands are in the guide?

We cover a wide range of bike brands from the ubiquitous Halfords and its five brands, to Tandam (eight brands), Trek, Raleigh, Specialized and Giant. We've also included folding bike brands like Brompton and Dahon, Chinese bike brands, and smaller UK brands like Alpkit. 

We’ve also included brands which specialise in kids’ bikes (Elswick, Hoy, Squish - all Tandem) and cargo bikes (Urban Arrow, Babboe).

Most bike companies on our score table make road bikes, off-road bikes, and electric bikes.

How popular is cycling in the UK?

The boom in UK cycling and bike sales due to the Covid pandemic appears to have levelled off, but the general trend is still upwards. 

In England, around 10% of adults cycle about once a week. The figures are apparently lower in Scotland and Wales but data is collected differently so it’s hard to say. Around 40% of people in England (over the age of 5) own a bike, and this includes e-bikes.

But the cycling modal share (the share of people cycling compared to using other modes of transport) in the UK is 2%, far lower than in many other European countries. 

Among the highest are Germany and Finland with a cycling modal share of around 12-13%, Denmark and Sweden 16-17%, Hungary 22%, and The Netherlands on top at around 27%. Public pressure on politicians to create safer cycling conditions plays a big role in how well cycling is provided for, and is said to have been the turning point for the Netherlands in the 1970s. 

These statistics from Europe show that there is huge potential to increase cycling in the UK.

Cycling campaign groups across the UK have been working for decades to make cycling safer and more enjoyable; find out if there local campaign groups near you by checking out Cycling UK's Cycle Advocacy Network.

Are e-bikes eco friendly?

In the UK, e-bike sales were just under 10% of all bike sales in 2024. 

E-bikes have great potential to reduce car mileage, with recent modelling suggesting over a third of car emissions could be cut in the UK if everyone had access to an e-bike. 

While electric bikes can be more complex to produce, they can reduce carbon footprints so long as they replace car journeys rather than mechanical bike or public transport journeys.

Cargo bikes

Cargo bikes are gradually becoming more visible in the UK, as they make it easier to carry more, such as shopping, tools or children. It has been estimated that 50% of urban trips related to the transport of goods could be shifted to cargo bikes. 

As with electric bikes, the typically higher cost of cargo bikes can be supported by the Cycle to Work scheme, through which employees can save up to 47% by buying a bike through their salary. In some parts of the UK, it may also be possible to hire a cargo bike which can work well if you only need one occasionally.

It’s also worth remembering there are ways to carry things on a normal bike that might not cost as much as buying a dedicated cargo bike, by using a bike basket, a rack and panniers, a trailer (including trailers to carry children), or a special child seat.

What are bikes made of?

Bike frames can be made of various different materials, each with their own sustainability and ethical pros and cons. We cover the most common materials here, but there are others available such as bamboo bikes.

Aluminium frames

Many bikes, especially cheaper ones, are made from aluminium or aluminium alloy as it is lighter and cheaper than steel (or titanium), although not as durable. Aluminium is extracted using an energy-intensive electrolysis process that can be powered by coal or renewable energy.

Brompton said in its latest sustainability report that it had partnered with an aluminium and renewable energy company to create bike rims made from 100% post-consumer recycled aluminium and was looking at ways to incorporate more of this material. 

Trek discussed introducing “low-impact aluminium” frames, with reductions mainly achieved by moving to aluminium produced using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels.

Carbon fibre frames

Carbon fibre is the lightest frame material, often used for racing bikes.

But carbon fibres are made from a mix of chemicals, and though the energy needed to produce a carbon frame is lower than that of metal alternatives, it is difficult to repair and very hard to recycle.

Titanium frames

Alpkit say that titanium is “the dream frame material for many riders”. This is because it’s light, strong, durable, and feels springy to ride. Alpkit uses recycled titanium but it’s not commonly recycled and takes a lot of energy to produce from ore.

Steel frames

Steel is made from iron ore. According to Cycling News, “To smelt enough steel for a single 1.5kg bike frame requires the same amount of energy as a standard UK household uses in a day”. The global steel recycling rate (from items like cars, white goods, and buildings, etc) grew from 65% to 85% between 2000 and 2019, but the growth in use of steel overall means that the proportion of recycled steel overall reduced from 35% to 33%.

Also, there are big differences between countries. Of the top 30 steel-producing countries, Thailand (more known for making motorcycles than bicycles) uses 96% recycled content, the United States uses 67%, Germany 38%, the UK 29%, China 27% and the Netherlands and India only 25%. This could have been good news for the brands from the US (Trek and Specialized), but they don’t make their bikes in the US. Anyway, the recycled content used in a country is not directly related to the likelihood that a steel bike made there will use recycled steel. It depends on what steel was used to make the tubing, which could have been imported, and companies are generally not sharing this level of detail publicly.

While no companies were found to publish information about their use of recycled steel, Pashley did say it used steel tubing made by Reynolds in the UK for many of its frames, which is from 100% recycled material.

Which bike frame material is most sustainable?

Regarding choice of metal, the amount used in bicycles is only a fraction of metal used globally and, if buying a bike means you will use a car less, it’s likely to save energy whatever the recycled content or energy source is. 

It seems best, however, to avoid carbon fibre bikes.

Conflict minerals in bikes

Minerals mined in conditions of armed conflict and human rights abuses, notably in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are known as conflict minerals. The four minerals currently regulated under US and EU law are tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold. They are key components of electronic devices and can also be used in electric bicycle motors.

Electric bicycle batteries typically also use cobalt, lithium, graphite, and nickel which have been linked to human rights abuses.

Companies making electric bicycles may not be subject to legal requirements around conflict mineral reporting themselves, as they are not electronics companies and they may not be making their own batteries either. EU reporting requirements around minerals in batteries have been delayed too, but we still looked to see which companies were acknowledging the issues.

How do bike brands rate for conflict mineral policies?

Only five companies scored any points in this category.

Alpkit was the only company to have a publicly available conflict minerals policy that acknowledged human rights issues. 

Four companies mentioned the issue but did not discuss human rights. Trek and Giant discussed tackling the environmental damage caused by mining battery materials and were improving battery life and recycling. Halfords and Accell Group (Raleigh) have started to recycle some batteries. 

Other companies made no mention of minerals but may be using batteries from brands such as Samsung, LG, Bosch and Panasonic, which have conflict minerals policies of their own.

How eco friendly are bike brands?

We rated the companies in the guide for their climate action and policies.

Bicycle companies’ reporting on climate emissions has improved since we updated this guide four years ago. 

Best for climate action

The highest scorers were Alpkit, Brompton, and Trek. 

All of these talked about increasing the use of recycled materials. 

Alpkit, Brompton, and Pashley also stood out for designing for durability.

Middling to poor scores for climate

Other companies scored poorly, mainly due to their lack of reporting. 

These were Frasers, Hero, Pon, Specialized, and Tandem. 

Pon did seem to be shifting its business towards products to support a transition to a lower-carbon society. It was investing in renewable energy through its Ponooc fund, and had sold its Pon Equipment and Pon Power businesses in 2025, but it still imported and distributed trucks, and sports and luxury cars to the US.

Halfords didn’t score well because motoring products and services accounted for close to 80% of its group revenues, and it did not discuss action to reduce emissions of suppliers.

Worst bike company for climate

KKR, (owner of Accell Group which makes Raleigh and Babboe) scored 0 because of its involvement in the development of new fossil fuel projects. It was criticised in 2024 by the Private Equity Climate Risks consortium for having “188 assets across 21 countries, spread across the firm’s ownership of 17 fossil fuel-based portfolio companies resulting in a staggering 93 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions in 2023 alone”.

What’s the lowest impact bike?

If you are looking for the most eco friendly or sustainable bike option, secondhand may be the way to go.

Secondhand bikes and community repair sit at the heart of ethical cycling.

They cut material demand, reduce waste and, crucially, lower the financial and psychological barriers that keep many people off bikes altogether. 

Tips on buying a secondhand bike

Buying a bike secondhand is one of the simplest ways to shrink cycling’s small footprint even further. 

A reused bike avoids the emissions and extraction tied to new frames, components and new packaging, and it keeps perfectly serviceable metal and rubber out of the waste stream. Secondhand can also be great value provided you know what to look for.

Here are some tips:

• Frame: scan welds/joints for cracks and dents, especially around the head tube, bottom bracket, and seat cluster.
• Wheels: spin both wheels, a slight wobble is fixable but big hops or cracks may not be worth it.
• Brakes: squeeze levers hard, they should bite firmly before reaching the handlebar. Brakes can be adjusted.
• Gears: skipping or grinding often means worn components, not fatal but may need a service.
• Fit beats brand: the right cheap bike beats the wrong expensive one every time.

If you’re unsure, community workshops can help assess a bike before you buy or teach you how to do those checks yourself. 

Hiring bikes can be sustainable option 

If you're visiting an area, or want to explore your locality and don't have a bike, hiring a bike for one-off occasions may be an option. The sharing economy reduces over-consumption and excess waste.

Look locally and ask in local bike shops if they hire bikes. There are also some council-run city hire schemes.

Or search these listings of bike hire options across the UK

• Walk Wheel Cycle Trust - focuses mainly on places near some of its designated cycle routes
• You Well - focuses mainly on larger towns/cities

Bike subscription and hiring schemes

For longer term bike hire, a rental or subscription scheme may be the best option instead of owning a bike.

Subscription models are increasingly shaping how people access bikes in UK cities, particularly e-bikes. 

These schemes sit somewhere between ownership and rental: you pay a monthly fee, the bike is yours to use day-to-day and maintenance, repairs, and often theft protection are included. These can be particularly useful for renters, students, and people testing whether cycling fits their lives.

From an ethical perspective, subscriptions are worth examining as they lower key barriers like upfront cost, maintenance anxiety, and commitment. Paired with secondhand markets, repair culture, and donation schemes, they become part of a broader ecosystem, one in which bikes circulate, skills are shared, and getting around doesn’t have to require buying anything at all.

Which bike companies own which brands?

Whilst some companies only make their own bikes, such as Brompton, other companies have a number of brands to their name. 

A note about Alpkit

Alpkit is the second smallest company in this guide after Pashley. It is 20% owned by its customers and employees, whom it consults annually on sustainability issues. It also stated that it gave 10% of profit and 1% of all sales to direct-action grassroots projects that help people get outside through Alpkit Foundation, its independent charity.

Alpkit was rescued in January 2026 by a new owner Jeroen van den Berge who is an individual investor, who Alpkit say is totally committed to their founding principles and the Alpkit foundation.

Ethical Consumer has advised Alpkit on ethics and sustainability. This relationship doesn’t impact our independent ratings. 

How ethical are bike companies' supply chains?

We rate companies for several ethical issues around supply chains such as where bikes are manufactured, supply chain reporting and workers' rights. 

Workers rights and bike companies

Only a few companies scored 40 or above (out of 100) in the Workers category. 

Best bike companies for workers' rights

The following brands all scored 40 or above. 

• Accell Group (Raleigh, Babboe)
• Alpkit
• Brompton
• Pashley 

Accell Group and Brompton had better oversight of their supply chains by producing more in-house.

Alpkit had long-term relationships with suppliers, made frequent visits to monitor workers’ rights, published all of its tier one suppliers, and told us: "we ask all our suppliers what their pay scales are relative to the local minimum and demand a minimum 10% premium over local rates." 

Pashley also had long-term relationships with suppliers and prioritised those in the UK. 

Worst bike companies for workers' rights

Frasers, Giant, Specialized, and Trek scored 0 and had all been criticised for workers’ rights abuses in their supply chains.

Where are bikes made?

Many bikes sold in the UK are made in Asia, but Alpkit, Brompton, and Pashley are all UK bike brands which make a point of keeping some of the manufacture in the UK.

Alpkit told us: "we have reshored jobs from Taiwan to UK particularly in wheel building. We bought a wheel building machine which is our single biggest ever investment." Brompton and Pashley make their own frames. Brompton has around 750 employees in its West London factory, and Pashley said "If we are unable to make a component in-house, we will always try first to source locally in the Midlands, and then nationally in the UK, after which we will look to Europe and the Far East."

Of the other companies in our table several manufactured or assembled in-house:

• Dahon – in China
• Giant – in Taiwan
• Hero – in India
• Pon has a list of assembly locations, including in Europe, but does not disclose manufacture locations.
• Raleigh (Accell) has factories in Hungary and France.

Others were unclear but appeared to outsource production: Halfords, Frasers, Specialized, Tandem, and Trek.

If you really want to find a bike made in the UK there are many other smaller brands you could explore, some of which build bikes to order. 

A detailed list is available at The Best Bike Lock website. 

Are any bike companies connected to Israel? 

We introduced a new rating in late 2025 to assesses the extent to which companies support the regime in Israel. 

KKR (owner of Accell Group which makes Raleigh and Babboe) scored lowest, due to its controlling share in the business Axel Springer, whose subsidiary AVIV Group hosts Yad2, a leading online classifieds marketplace in Israel. According to the 2024 Don't Buy Into Occupation report, Yad2 lists more than 2,000 ads for properties for sale or rent in Israeli settlements and hosts job offers for private security services for checkpoints and roles in settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Other companies (Brompton, Giant) were marked down for having dedicated stores in Israel, which contribute money to the state in the form of taxes. 

Pon owns one brand (Cervélo) with a distributor in Israel and Specialized also partners with one. 

Frasers has a shareholder which was criticised in the report From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide.

Best ratings for Palestine

The company which scored best in the Israel-Palestine rating was Alpkit, as it told us that it had made sure it didn’t have any connections to the Israeli state, although it had not made any public statements. 

Dahon, Halfords, Hero, Pashley, Tandem, and Trek also scored highly as no connections were found.

Tax conduct of bike companies

Several companies scored full marks for Tax Conduct: 

• Alpkit (Sonder)
• Dahon
• Pashley
• Specialized
• Trek 

Other bike companies scored 0 (out of 100) because of their extensive presence in tax havens: 

• KKR (owner of Accell Group which makes Raleigh and Babboe)
• Frasers Group (previously Sports Direct)
• Giant
• Pon

Middle scoring brands

Those in between included Tandem, due to its subsidiary in the tax haven of Hong Kong. 

Brompton owns a holding company in Hong Kong, a higher-risk company type for likely tax avoidance. 

Halfords owns a subsidiary based in Delaware, USA, which is known for its financial secrecy, and Hero owns a holding company in Netherlands, also a tax haven.

Bike kitchens and community repair

Bike kitchens and DIY workshops are community-run spaces where people can learn how to maintain a bike, often paying what they can. They’re places where repair is demystified and confidence is built alongside practical skills.

Across the UK these organisations help support the community and shared economy: a bike that can be fixed should be, and that shouldn’t be restricted to those who can afford professional servicing.

In bike kitchens and local repair centres you can:

• rent a stand or bench and use specialist tools
• get guidance from mechanics or volunteers
• learn in a welcoming setting
• salvage parts from donated bikes.

Beyond being practical, bike kitchens reduce the hidden costs of cycling – tools, labour, and confidence – and turn repair into a shared skill.

We've listed over 40 local bike workshops or cycling cafes in the UK which offer a range of services including drop-in or formal repair sessions, hire of bikes, secondhand bikes and a sense of community. If you know of a place currently not featured in the list let us know so more people can benefit.

If you’re not the hands-on type, get the bike serviced by a professional once a year, or more often if it gets heavy use.

Recycling your bike: what to do with your old bike

If you’ve got a bike gathering dust, donating it is usually more impactful than selling. In particular when it goes to an organisation that refurbishes and redistributes to people facing barriers to mobility. 

For owners of high-end bikes, Cycle Exchange buys and does part exchanges.

A number of charities accept donations of old bikes. Some of them refurbish and resell the bikes so they may be a good option if you’re after a secondhand bike too.

The table below outlines some national, regional and local schemes for recycling your bike.

Can you recycle tyres and inner tubes?

Punctured inner tubes can be patched many times and still remain sound. Wear to your tyres can be reduced by keeping them at the right pressure and checking for and removing embedded debris. But ultimately both will have to be replaced.

There are around 10,000+ tonnes of bike tyres and inner tubes going to landfill each year,

To avoid sending them to landfill, try reusing them. Inner tubes and tyres can be recycled with Velorim for use in flooring, construction and insulation. There are drop off centres around the country but there is a small fee involved, typically £1 for inner tubes and £1.50 per tyre.

Barriers to owning and using a bike

Cycling is often framed as a simple solution: cheap, clean, accessible. However, in reality, many people are locked out long before they ever get on a saddle.

Cost, climate, infrastructure, and culture all shape who feels cycling is possible and who decides it isn’t for them.

Weather

In the UK, weather is one of the most cited reasons people give for not cycling, particularly rain, wind and cold. Cycling year-round often requires waterproof jackets and trousers, windproof outer layers, lights suitable for low-visibility conditions and tyres designed for wet grip. These costs are rarely included when cycling is described as “cheap”.

Without decent gear, bad weather quickly turns cycling from practical transport into an endurance test – disproportionately affecting those who can’t afford trial-and-error purchases.

Have a read of our outdoor clothing guide online for how to buy secondhand. 

Cost and financial risk

While secondhand bikes are often affordable, new bikes (especially e-bikes) may not be. The upfront cost of a bike can still be a significant barrier.

According to data from Mintel’s 2024 Cycling Report, the UK bicycle market sees around 2.2 million bikes sold
annually at an average price of about £500, a figure that masks high variation across types and specs:

• Entry-level adult bikes (for example, Tandem’s brands) are typically priced between £250 and £400
• Mid-range commuter and leisure bikes often sit between £500 and £1,000
• High-end road, gravel, and mountain bikes can cost several thousand pounds.

E-bikes: a higher bar to entry

Electric bikes remain significantly more expensive than non-assisted models. 

Third-party price surveys focusing on the UK market found that in 2024-25 average new e-bike retail prices typically ranged from around £900 to £4,000 or more for high-spec bikes. 

Because e-bikes carry batteries and motors, their maintenance costs are also higher than conventional bikes. 

That said, it is still possible to find new e-bikes priced around £500, from budget retailers such as Halfords. 

How the design of towns plays a part

Whether people cycle is shaped less by personal motivation than by how towns are designed. Where cycling feels safe, direct, and normal, participation rises across age, gender, and income. Where it feels dangerous or inconvenient, cycling tends to be limited to confident riders.

In England, safety concerns were cited as the top reason (48%) people are discouraged from cycling. Data from Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (previously Sustrans) shows that 76% of women are more likely to cycle on routes that are separated from motor traffic, while a Swapfiets survey shows that 90% of respondents fear urban cycling, citing fears over being hit by a driver, experiencing road rage and the threat of theft.

The Netherlands is often exemplified as a cycling success story, but its high cycling rates are not cultural accidents. They are the result of decades of deliberate planning. In the Netherlands, around 28% of all journeys are made by bike, compared with around 2% in the UK. Cycling is also far more evenly distributed across gender and age groups, demonstrating how infrastructure shapes who feels able to ride. Dutch towns prioritise physically protected cycle lanes, traffic-calmed residential streets, direct, connected cycling routes and town centres designed around people rather than cars.

One of the clearest examples is Houten, a town near Utrecht that was deliberately designed to prioritise walking and cycling over private car use. In Houten homes are connected by a dense, direct network of cycle paths, car routes are longer and indirect, pushed to the edges of neighbourhoods, and residential streets are low-traffic and child-friendly. The result is that cycling is not an “alternative” mode of transport, but the default.

Children, older people, and families cycle independently, and car use is reduced by design. 

By contrast, UK towns have largely been shaped around car movement, with cycling infrastructure often fragmented, painted on or added as an afterthought. This places the burden of safety on individuals rather than systems.

Cycling as a lifeline

A cycling group in Dumfries is combining bikes, repair workshops and cycling trips with refugees and asylum seekers to improve community engagement, rural transport poverty and the environment.

Cycling as a lifeline

For people experiencing transport poverty, limited mobility can restrict access to education, healthcare, employment, and social connection. 

For asylum seekers and refugees in particular, everyday movement is constrained by where people are housed and what transport is available. Accommodation is typically on the outskirts of towns and restrictions on work can make mobility a daily struggle.

One group changing that narrative is Cycling Dumfries, a local campaign group working to encourage active travel in and around Dumfries. In 2024, it partnered with the Depot, a local refugee charity, to distribute secondhand bikes and organise bike rides to support asylum seekers being accommodated in a hotel beyond the outskirts of Dumfries.

Sally Hinchcliffe, the Convenor of Cycling Dumfries told us: “Bikes are a lifeline to these mostly young men, as transport to English classes and appointments, and to allow them to get out and get some exercise. The project soon expanded to run a weekly workshop where refugees’ bikes are repaired and where they can come to get a bike, maintain their own bikes, or learn how to do so alongside the workshop’s volunteers.

"Since the project began, over 300 bikes have been distributed and countless more fixed, along with distributions of lights and locks, helmets, and other accessories. The project is now looking to expand into a community workshop that can serve the wider population of Dumfries, where transport poverty is a serious issue. This will build cohesion by encouraging people from all backgrounds to work and learn alongside each other and enable anyone locally who wants one to have access to an affordable bike.”

Gender, access, and safety

Barriers to cycling are not only financial or infrastructural. Culture decides who feels welcome. Without visible, explicitly inclusive spaces, many people are excluded regardless of how many bike lanes exist.

Women remain under-represented in UK cycling, particularly for commuting and everyday journeys. According to Mintel’s 2023 Cycling Report, men are nearly twice as likely to cycle as women, a gap that has remained stubbornly stable over the past decade. Research by Walk Wheel Cycle Trust and Cycling UK shows that women are far more sensitive to traffic danger. In cities with high-quality cycling infrastructure, the gender gap narrows markedly.

Safety concerns extend beyond road design. Poor lighting, isolated routes, and fear of harassment also shape who feels able to cycle – particularly after dark or while carrying children.

Cycling culture itself has historically centred male riders, with bike design, marketing and retail spaces often failing to reflect women’s needs. When cycling infrastructure prioritises speed over protection and care, it systematically excludes large sections of the population.

Carving out space: Queer cycling

For many LGBTQ+ people the absence of representation becomes a barrier in itself. 

Writers and cyclists Lilith Cooper (they/them) and Abi Melton (she/they) have spoken about not seeing themselves reflected in cycling narratives – particularly as queer, neurodivergent, and fat riders. 

They wrote Gears for Queers to document a different relationship with cycling: one rooted in joy, self-reliance, and learning what their bodies could do, rather than performance or optimisation. Their work highlights how cycling spaces, from events to infrastructure, are often divided rigidly along gender lines, leaving non-binary and trans riders unsure where they belong, or how safe they will be. 

For many LGBTQ+ cyclists, especially trans people and trans people of colour, questions of visibility and safety shape every ride. Alongside storytelling, Cooper and Melton point to the importance of community-led spaces that actively centre inclusion. These include queer and trans-led cycling groups, DIY bike kitchens, and organisations supported by Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, which works to amplify cycling cultures that prioritise care, mutual support and fun over speed or status. 

Additional research for this guide by Yalda Keshavarzi.