Bicycle Friendly Business

The Green Institute | Bronze Level

Business Highlights: The Green Institute has helped build a sense of community in their office through bicycling and employees have achieved noticeably improved employee health as a result. The site of the building was intentionally established in a bike-friendly location along the Midtown Greenway, on a bike route system and near a light rail line. They are a bike-friendly work place in that they provide ample convenient bike parking, bike trail maps, on-site showers for bike commuters, and participate in the Commuter Challenge. The Green Institute spreads their bike-love to the community by hosting bike ambassadors from the Bike Walk Ambassadors program in Minneapolis to teach bike safety and maintenance. They also have brown bag lunches and maintenance workshops for the whole building, provided by the City of Minneapolis Bike/Walk Ambassadors. They also organized a Bike/Walk Challenge for the whole building. The contest awards prizes to the top 3 offices that had the highest percentage of people who did not drive alone that week and to the top 3 individual staff who biked the most miles over the course of the week.

Most Compelling Bike Related Accomplishment: The Green Institute hosted the Twin Cities' largest Bike to Work Day breakfast for Bike-Walk Week 2010. They had every office in their building involved as a sponsor. They served over 400 bikers and walkers, bringing in R. T. Rybak, the mayor of Minneapolis. They also brought a free tune-up station to the event with a local bike shop and a Metro Transit bike rack for people to practice putting their bike on the bus. Half of the parking lot is transformed into bike parking for the event in order to serve all of the bike commuters.