BlaBlaCar – the future of sustainable mobility

BlaBlaCar was the first and most important mobility provider in Germany to automatically integrate climate protection into its offering. As of 2016, all BlaBlaCar rideshares booked online were offset with myclimate projects. The “CO₂-neutral rideshare” became a fixed part of the user’s service package when making a booking. Just as insurance protection, offsetting was fully integrated into the booking fee. myclimate and BlaBlaCar worked together, using the TREMOD model developed by the IFEU Institute on behalf of the Environment Ministry, to calculate weighted average emissions figures for the BlaBlaCar fleet. Broken down based on the individuals sharing the ride and multiplied by the distance covered, the resulting CO₂ value became automatically offset by BlaBlaCar in myclimate climate protection projects.

Community voted on the project

The choice of which project would first offset the rideshares was in the hands of the BlaBlaCar community. BlaBlaCar members had the opportunity to choose their preferred myclimate project between “Energy from FSC Wood Waste in the Amazon Rainforest”, “Re-Greening the Island with Efficient Cookers” on Madagascar and “Cooking with Corncobs instead of Coal” in the Shanxi province of China. In the chosen Madagascar project, myclimate supported the manufacture and distribution of efficient cookers and climate-friendly solar cookers. Additionally, the sensitization of pupils about environmental protection as well as the reforestation of two seedlings per cook stove sold were part of that project.

With over 40 million members, BlaBlaCar is the largest long-distance rideshare app in the world. Per quarter, 12 million travellers around the world trust BlaBlaCar to organize their trips and split their travel costs.

As long as the era of combustion motors continues, it will be our goal to make private mobility on the streets CO₂-neutral. For this reason, we will institute standard offsetting for the CO₂-emissions of all rideshares in Germany that are booked on BlaBlaCar. We are very glad to have found such a strong partner as myclimate for this pioneer project“

Olivier Bremer, General Manager BlaBlaCar Deutschland in 2016