Author: Phil Ellis, CEO and Co-Founder, Beryl
Bike share sponsorship is becoming an established part of the UK’s micromobility industry. In London for instance, Santander has sponsored the government’s bike share scheme since 2015, while Starling Bank’s sponsorship deal with Transport for Greater Manchester is the biggest in the transport body’s history.
In 2022, we partnered with the UK’s largest electricity transmission and distribution business, the National Grid, which sponsors our entire Norwich fleet.
But what are the benefits to this kind of partnership?
Now in the second full summer since launching, we can assess the tangible impact it’s had on the Norwich bike, e-bike, and e-scooter share scheme.
More time for projects, more sustainable travel
National Grid sponsorship has allowed Beryl to run more projects with businesses, charities and community groups, and make sustainable travel even more accessible.
By boosting this work, the partnership helps to further reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions, while improving mental and physical health and air quality in Norwich.
For National Grid, the partnership demonstrates its commitment to delivering a clean energy transition, while working with the communities it serves on projects that will cut carbon emissions strongly aligns with its sustainability values and ambitions.
On paper, it makes perfect sense, but does it work in practice?
Assessing the impact
The answer is yes.
Words like commitment, support and partnering sound good from a PR perspective, but here they can be backed up with data and tangible impact.
The partnership has supported 15 so-called ‘rider acquisition campaigns’ so far, offering funded incentivisation to encourage first time rides and sign ups. Overall, these campaigns have generated over 30,000 sustainable journeys across Norwich. This has helped the scheme to overperform in some rider metrics, compared to other similar-sized Beryl schemes.
For example, to celebrate the Norwich scheme’s fourth birthday, riders across the city were able to claim a free 10 minute journey and unlock on 16 and 17 March. This offer generated 1,515 journeys, around one fifth of which were new users that have since taken further rides with Beryl. Similarly, an Earth Day promotion ran on 23 April 2023, offering a 25 minute free ride. This generated 2,658 journeys, nearly half of which were new users that are still using Beryl today.
The funding was also used to promote other targeted acquisition campaigns via digital advertising. The New Year Same You campaign launched on New Year’s Day 2024 aimed to capitalise on the increased motivation of the New Year period to attract new riders. The campaign acquired 530 new sign-ups in Norwich – 34% higher than other Beryl locations.
Our annual Rider Report 2023 shows that they are having a positive long-term impact on riders. In Norwich, 44% of those asked have been cycling more or much more often since using Beryl – 6% higher than the national average.
Boosting business
The partnership has also allowed Beryl to work with the Norwich Business Improvement District (BID), a not-for-profit organisation set up to represent the needs of local businesses and deliver meaningful improvements to the city for visitors, residents and workers. The funding provides 1000 x 100 minute bundles to disseminate to small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that couldn’t normally benefit from Beryl corporate membership packages.
These bundles have generated over 5,000 sustainable journeys of which more than 600 have directly replaced car, van, taxi or motorbike journeys.
They’ve also generated over 800 hours of physical activity with combined journey distance surpassing 9,000 kilometres.
One such beneficiary is the National Centre for Writing, a literature development agency based in the city’s Dragon Hall. Their CEO, Peggy Hughes, explained why sustainable initiatives are important to them.
“We strive to be a responsible and accountable organisation in our environmental actions and green travel is very much a feature of that,” she said. “We encourage our team, our artists and our audiences to consider how they travel and we’re also part of the Bike to Work Scheme and successfully lobbied for a nearby Beryl bay.
“My colleagues use Beryl vehicles to get to and from work, or between work and events or meetings. Our visiting artists have also been known to use them for leisure rides, taking them for a spin up the river.
“Personally, my Beryl usage has almost exclusively replaced other more polluting forms of transport. I don’t drive, but I would have taken more taxis and buses when needed, particularly for slightly longer work-related journeys. Now, thanks to the station right beside work, I’ll just jump on a Beryl instead.”
The partner view
Kim Sibilla, Community Benefits Manager for National Grid, acknowledges that the company’s responsibility as a business goes beyond safely building new energy infrastructure to enable a cleaner, fairer, and more affordable future.
“We want to leave a lasting positive legacy in the communities where we operate, and we’re really proud of the difference this partnership is making to improve air quality and get people active in Norwich.”
Councillor Graham Plant, cabinet member for highways, infrastructure and transport at Norfolk County Council is equally enthusiastic about the partnership.
He said: “The beryl scheme in Norwich continues to be hugely popular and is a key part of our transport strategy for the city. Latest reports show that 61% of rides are replacing car or van journeys which means this scheme is making a real impact on air quality in the city. The partnership with National Grid is allowing us to reach even more people across the Greater Norwich area and encourage more regular use, which in hand will help us to achieve our ambitious net-zero targets for the county.”
The Future
Working with Norfolk County Council and National Grid, Beryl will continue to run targeted acquisition campaigns and capitalise on events such as Cycle to Work Day and Car Free Day to help encourage even more people to swap four wheels for two.
The partnership will also benefit future scheme and cycling infrastructure enhancements across the city, incentivising their use via promotions and offers. This will not only drive more people away from high emission transport modes, but it will also help the council to meet their active travel goals.
Further work will be done alongside local SMEs to embed active travel measures, but with a greater focus on community organisations and helping to develop the impact of outreach programmes. A key aspect of this will be delivering instructor-led confidence rides for community groups, as part of Norfolk County Council’s Healthy Libraries campaign. Increasing engagement with older users and addressing the gender imbalance in cycling by encouraging more female riders are key objectives for Beryl. This work will form a crucial part of helping to meet those objectives.
With effective long-term planning and a targeted approach, the evidence shows that sponsorship can have a positive impact on shared transport scheme success.
And that’s good news for air quality and public health.
