New Belgium Continues to Champion Bicycling Advantages

The logo of New Belgium Brewing’s flagship beer, “Fat Tire,” shows the commitment to bicycles for the Fort Collins, Colorado brewery.

New Belgium once again was named a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Business by the League of American Bicyclists.

Bicycle advocacy has been part of New Belgium’s core as the brewery prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The brewery has awarded more than $4 million from Tour de Fat proceeds, its philanthropic traveling bike festival. It has given an additional $8 million to nonprofit organizations across a wide spectrum, mostly with environmental causes.

“As a brewery founded on a bike ride ride through Belgium, bike advocacy is part of our DNA so this is a tremendous honor,” said Bryan Simpson, New Belgium’s public relations director. “Making the world a more bike-friendly place is core to our mission, from giving every co-worker a cruiser bike on their one-year anniversary, to including bike advocacy in our grants program and Tour de Fat.”

New Belgium which has 410 employees — is a part of a group of 1,132 businesses, government agencies and Fortune 500 companies in 49 states and Washington, D.C. to be awarded. This is the second time the brewery has been awarded for this Platinum honor, the last being in 2011 with this award being a renewal and continuation of the four-year award.

NBB-600x400“The business community’s investment in bicycling is playing a central role in making the country a safer, happier, and more sustainable place to live and work,” said League Bicycle Friendly Business Program Manager Amelia Neptune. “We applaud this new round of businesses, including New Belgium, for leading the charge in creating a bicycle-friendly America for everyone.”

Filling out a lengthy application that touches on aspect such as education, engineering, encouragement, evaluation and planning, awards are given out on a quarterly basis. The BFB designation is given on a four-year basis, after which time the business must reapply to maintain or improve their status.

Platinum-level business win the award for having excellent bike parking, showers, lockers, incentives to get people riding, great bike education programs and events, supportive policies and a strong cycling culture seen both internally and externally according to the BFB website.

Along with the $4 million given for bike advocacy, New Belgium has a partnership for 2,000 bikes made from Detroit Bikes along with being involved with the Fort Collins bike culture.

Bicycle Friendly Businesses are corporations, organizations, nonprofits and associations that weave bicycling into their business culture and give employees and customers the opportunity to be active stewards of their personal and environmental health through bicycling. When bicycling is infused in an office or company culture, great things happen: reduced health care costs; more productive employees; improved worker and customer satisfaction; smaller carbon footprint; and increased corporate social responsibility.

 

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