Register your workplace for the Green Streets Initiative's Walk/Ride Day Corporate Challenge!
Next Walk/Ride Day - April 29 - kicks off the 2016 Walk/Ride Day Corporate Challenge!
The 2016 Walk/Ride Day Corporate Challenge, the fourth annual competition among Boston and Cambridge area employers to determine which organizations are the green commuting champion, will kick off this April 29! REGISTER HERE NOW!
The Challenge takes place once a month, from April through October. It invites organizations to encourage their staff to check-in their commutes online on the last Friday of every month, aka Walk/Ride Days. Walking, bicycling or using mass transit - even carpooling - all count as "green", and we welcome car commuters to check in and be eligible for rewards as well. Fundamendally, Walk/Ride Day is a recurring opportunity to think about – and often to explore – more environmentally friendly and healthly commuting options.
Once a company has registered, participation by individual staff is free and simply involves "checking in" online on Walk/Ride Day. If it's a new commuting habit for them, great. If it's typical, that's fantastic, too. This Challenge is designed to celebrate both! There are monthly and overall winners, who are listed on an online leader board and in local media. At the end of the Challenge, the companies' in each size category with the greatest staff participation will be rewarded with Ice Cream and Fruit Parties (ice cream donated by local purveyors including Toscanini's, JP Licks, and others, and fruit salads donated by Whole Foods). All participating workplaces are celebrated at an annual formal awards event.
What do you get with your registration?
- Opportunity to collaborate with Harvard Business School's Michael Norton and University of British Columbia's Ashley Whillans' research team. (The team will be working directly with companies with more than 1000 staff, but their results on ways to promote, inspire, and incentivize Walk/Ride Day participation in ways that are effective, self-sustaining, and likely to “go viral,” will be useful to all.)
- Monthly online raffles, End of Year Winners' Parties, Awards Ceremony
- Monthly results shown on Live Leader Board
- Staff check-in data sent monthly to coordinators if requested
- Web and print materials explaining Challenge and FAQ's to staff
- Coordinator support materials, updates and gatherings
- Monthly newsletter and announcements to staff
- Listings and links to competing organizations on our website
- Hands-on staff outreach in your lobby or cafeteria by Green Streets, if requested
- Press releases to local media.
- A report summarizing the healthy and environmental impacts of your workplace's participation in the Challenge, looking at levels of participation, CO2 not consumed, and calories expended
- Credit for Bike-Friendly Business status (Boston) and PTDM compliance (Cambridge).
- Credit toward next year's fees for your organization's President/CEO signing this pledge to participate in this year's Challenge and participating. (10% credit for checking in all 7 times, and 5% credit for checking in 5 or 6 times)
- Deliveries right to your workplace's door of FREE CLIF Bar & Co. bars for use as in-house check-in incentives for your staff! (Confirmed for 2016!)
Sponsorship opportunities are available as well.
Here are what some of our previous participants say:
- "This is awesome! Feels good to know I'm helping save 3 lbs of CO2 emissions when I walk."
- "As of this week, I have now commuted at least 3 miles/day for the last 1,000 consecutive days! I've been walking to work daily (without exception) since December, 2011. Woo!"
- "Knowing an estimate of my CO2 emissions saved was astounding! I've never seen my simple commute expressed in units before besides minutes late for work!"
For more information, see attached press releases, registration page, list of 2015 competitors and 2015 Live Leader Board.
Check-In your commute here, friend us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
- April 29, 2016 at 7:00am – April 30, 2016
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Janie Katz-Christy