Europe has spent years talking about making urban mobility more sustainable. Now comes the harder part: changing how Europeans actually get to work.
A recent European Court of Auditors report offered a stark reminder of the scale of the challenge. Three-quarters of Europeans live in urban areas, congestion costs the EU economy an estimated €180 billion every year, and significant gaps remain in addressing commuter flows. Making daily commuting more sustainable is far from a finished job.
For European Cycling Industries (ECI), cycling — and particularly company bike leasing — is an increasingly important part of the answer.
The potential is clear. Most urban journeys are under 5 km — comfortably within cycling distance — while e-bikes have made cycling accessible to a much wider range of users, regardless of age or fitness level. Company bike leasing can help turn that potential into real modal shift by giving employees easy and affordable access to quality bikes and e-bikes through the workplace — making cycling a practical option for many more daily commutes.
Yet successful frameworks for bike leasing through salary conversion exist in only a handful of EU Member States. Expanding that model across Europe is a key objective of ECI’s Bike Leasing Expert Group, led by Wasilis von Rauch (Chair, Zukunft Fahrrad), Herman Van Beveren (Vice-Chair, Decathlon) and Lauha Fried (staff lead, ECI).
At the heart of the model is salary conversion: employees lease a bike or e-bike through their employer, with payments deducted from their gross salary. Where supported by favourable tax treatment, this can make bikes significantly more affordable than purchasing them outright, while giving employers a practical and cost-effective way to support sustainable commuting. The model has already proved highly successful in markets such as Germany and Belgium.
From policy to practice in Stockholm
That ambition was at the heart of ECI’s company bike leasing workshop in Stockholm on 25 August. The event brought together members of ECI’s Bike Leasing Expert Group with Swedish leasing providers, employers, public authorities and mobility experts to explore what it would take to scale up company bike leasing in Sweden — from the policy and tax framework to the business case for employers and the wider benefits for sustainable mobility.
Sweden is part of a wider ECI effort to translate successful company bike leasing models into solutions that work in different national markets. Following workshops in Italy and Sweden, ECI will continue its pilot-country work in Poland and Spain later this autumn, bringing together industry, employers and policymakers to identify the tax, regulatory and policy conditions needed to unlock company bike leasing in each market.
A growing EU policy opportunity
The approach already has a strong EU policy foundation. The European Declaration on Cycling commits the EU and Member States to prioritising cycling in sustainable urban mobility planning and explicitly calls on companies and organisations to promote cycling through mobility management, cycle-to-work incentives and the provision of company bikes and e-bikes.
Additionally, under the revised TEN-T Regulation, 431 European urban nodes must have Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans in place by the end of 2027. These plans will set out how cities and urban areas intend to shift towards more sustainable mobility. Cycling offers cities and employers one of the most affordable and readily deployable ways to help deliver that shift.
ECI is working to turn these EU commitments into action. At EU level, we are advocating for cycling and company bike leasing measures to be recognised across relevant legislation and policy, while contributing to the European Commission’s Expert Group on Urban Mobility (EGUM) work on company mobility management. The aim is to ensure that cycling is treated not simply as infrastructure, but as an integral part of how Europe approaches commuting and sustainable corporate mobility.
At national level, ECI will continue working with industry, employers and policymakers to create the conditions for successful company bike leasing models to spread to new markets — with the longer-term ambition of making company bikes a mainstream mobility option across the EU-27.
The opportunity is substantial. Europe needs less congestion and pollution, cleaner cities and healthier citizens. Employers need practical ways to make commuting more sustainable. And millions of Europeans need affordable access to bikes and e-bikes.
Company bike leasing can help deliver all three.
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