This article originally appeared in the February issue of Powersports Business.
Superstition suggests riding a green motorcycle is bad luck. That is, until a Tampa-area powersports dealership found an exception.
SpinWurkz Motorcycles, located in Seminole, Florida — just outside of Tampa — was recently named Best Motorcycle Dealership in the Tampa area by a community of voters. It is also the first dealership to team up with The Evergreen Exchange, a carbon credit platform that offsets a motorcycle’s emissions. (Photos: SpinWurkz)
SpinWurkz Motorcycles in Seminole, Florida, is helping its riding community go green, and not by selling electric motorcycles. Instead, dealership owner Ted Brodene is working with The Evergreen Exchange — a sustainability platform designed to make environmental responsibility practical and affordable for small and mid-sized businesses.
Ted’s dealership, SpinWurkz, was recently voted No. 1 motorcycle store by Tampa’s Best. Business is good, but Ted says he saw an opportunity with The Evergreen Exchange and offset the operational lifetime emissions of every motorcycle in his inventory — more than 300 metric tons of carbon.
He is the first powersports dealership participating in the program, which authenticates motorcycles as Evergreen-certified.
Establishing carbon credits
So, what exactly is a carbon credit? It’s essentially a metric ton of carbon dioxide that is removed, prevented, or offset from going into the atmosphere.
“Think of it like a scale. It’s a balancing act. Your bike creates emissions; we find something that offsets it,” says Casey Stabile, co-founder and CEO of The Evergreen Exchange.
“It’s not exactly carbon from your motorcycle being eliminated, but it’s offsetting emissions that is equivalent to your output,” adds Sheffield Brodene, Ted’s brother, who brokered the business relationship between SpinWurkz and The Evergreen Exchange.
Internal combustion-engine motorcycles will always emit carbon. However, eliminating initial emissions isn’t the end goal. Rather, those emissions are offset through sustainability projects, which then produce a carbon credit.
Let’s say a windmill produces 8,000 kilowatt hours of carbon-free electricity, which can be directly converted to how much coal was prevented, or carbon from coal burning power plant, from going into the atmosphere. The Evergreen Exchange takes that information and turns it into a carbon credit.
“We’re not taking away the original pollution; we’re offsetting it, making it neutral. There’s going to be pollution. But we figured it’s going to be X amount, so then we removed X amount,” Sheffield explains.
Green certified
In other words, a green-certified motorcycle purchased is an operational carbon-neutral bike. To make the carbon credit an actual commodity, The Evergreen Exchange built a system that authenticates the relevant data required to meet international standards.
The offsets are calculated by allocating each bike a five-year, 5,000-mile-a-year lifespan. Each machine is attached to an environmentally sustainable project, such as the construction of a windmill or solar farm, planting trees, repairing forests, or repairing waterways. These actions thus offset the emissions a motorcycle produces in a 25,000-mile period.
Ted Brodene is the owner of Tampa-area dealership SpinWurkz.
“Our claim right now is that we’re going to cover 25,000 miles of a motorcycle being driven. We go through, understand the engine, and the impact that it will have on the environment. Then we find a project that generates carbon credits or carbon offsets to mitigate the bike’s emissions, basically offsetting the impact it has on the environment,” says Stabile.
Each motorcycle’s environmental impact is recorded and placed into a digital ledger — or blockchain — where nobody can change it. Every green bike features a QR code that is linked to a portal that shows all the data and documentation of the environmental impact, or carbon credit, that specific machine produces.
“It’s transparent for the consumer, and everybody can look at it. And if they want to go through and follow the trail, we provide the breadcrumbs,” Stabile says.
How dealers can sell it
The Evergreen Exchange is only six months into launching its evergreen certified program, and SpinWurkz is the first motorcycle dealership to participate. Ted says his primary objective is getting customers to understand the concept and how they can make an environmentally conscious decision that’s not a financial setback.
“What is the biggest thing that has stopped people from going green? It’s the price. It’s expensive to be environmentally sound. We’ve removed that excuse,” Ted explains. “One of the things that I bring to the table is how do you sell it as a dealer? I’ve been doing this for 23 years, and you can do this as a line item. You can put it right on your bill of sale. And if someone is financing a bike, you can pack it right into your pricing.”
Ted Brodene says he saw an opportunity with The Evergreen Exchange and offset the operational lifetime emissions of every motorcycle in his inventory — more than 300 metric tons of carbon.
Ted says he bakes that extra cost to carbon-neutralize a motorcycle right into the monthly payments. If the price to get your bike green-certified at SpinWurkz is an extra $500; that cost, when rolled into a five-year financing plan. At the end of the year, dealers can also file the extra costs it takes to certify the bike green as an expense.
“The truth is that a financing customer is more concerned about the monthly payment than they are about the total price. I’ve seen it a billion times, Ted says. If you’re spreading out $500 over five or six years, it’s less than $10 a month.”
With that approach, Sheffield adds, it’s hard for a customer to justify not investing in something that would have a positive environmental impact — with the bonus of driving an ICE-powered vehicle and not going electric. “So, for less than $10 a month, you can eliminate the carbon footprint of your motorcycle, and you can pull up next to a smug hybrid owner and flip them the bird.”
New generation of riders
Ted also talked about the generational shift happening in motorcycle enthusiasts. He says he sees the younger generation being more environmentally aware, and that practicing sustainability is becoming something dealers should be selling — especially if e-motorcycles are not on their showroom floor.
“When it comes to the newer generation, the market is changing. The clientele is changing. It’s a more-aware clientele than it’s ever been,” Ted says, adding on a hypothetical sales pitch. “Look, I know we sell fun. I finance happiness. Here it is. But it does have, you know, pollutants. So, let’s offset that.”
And the sales pitch isn’t far-fetched. Motorcyclists and off-road enthusiasts spend a lot of their time outdoors, doing the thing they’re passionate about.
“You’ll never see a bigger environmentalist than a biker,” Stabile says. “And this is protecting the thing that they love.”
The Evergreen Exchange model is replicable across the powersports industry, not just motorcycles. Any dealer interested in getting their store involved in The Evergreen Exchange can visit the website at TheEvergreenExchange.com to set up a consultation.
