We have the RIDE-GREEN campaign to address the issue of sustainability as a mountain bike magazine. Together with partners from the industry, we organised a sustainability workshop and are now trying to build a bike that is as sustainable as possible. The company Danico Biotech supplies the necessary greases and lubricants. These have been developed on a plant-based basis and manufactured in Germany for over ten years.
BIKE: Sustainability has many facets. What makes an ecological product for you?
ARIAN NEKThe topic is becoming increasingly important to consumers, which is why more and more companies are trying to present themselves as green. The simplest way: product packaging made from recycled paper. But for me, that doesn't make a product biologically correct. For me as a biochemist and lubricant manufacturer, organic products have to fulfil two criteria in particular. Firstly, they must be made from renewable raw materials. And secondly, they must be easily biodegradable in a natural way. For example, if chain oil is released into the environment while driving, it must be decomposable by naturally occurring bacteria.
Let's stick with the example of chain oil. A normal biker needs about 100 millilitres a year, which he applies directly to the chain and does not deliberately spread in the forest. Can such a small amount really cause environmental damage?
It is assumed that around 70 per cent of the chain oil applied when biking evaporates into the environment. After a ride through the dirt or in the rain, it is usually gone. It has to go somewhere. So if you use 100 millilitres of chain oil a year, you are dispersing 70 millilitres of it into the environment without actually meaning to. Extrapolated to the sum of all bikers, this adds up to a huge amount of oil that ends up directly in sensitive natural areas. If you then consider that one drop of oil is enough to contaminate 1000 litres of drinking water, it quickly becomes clear that even a supposedly inconspicuous product such as chain oil can cause a great deal of damage. But the question actually needs to be turned round: Why do I have to pollute nature with chain oil when there are biologically based products?
Can these biological products compete with conventional lubricants in terms of effectiveness?
That was precisely the reason why I started producing organic lubricants for bikes over ten years ago. There were simply no sensible products available at the time. Many organic oils tend to resinify and are therefore not suitable for technical use on bikes. However, over 100 years ago, Russian researchers discovered the oil of a special sunflower variety that does not resinify and is even superior to a mineral oil-based product in many properties. With this special high-oleic oil (rich in oleic acid, editor's note), technical lubricants can be produced that are in no way inferior to a classic mixture. In terms of longevity, bio-lubricants are even significantly better than mineral oil-based products.
If you look at it this way, the question arises as to why the vast majority of lubricants are still made from mineral oil?
Large companies have to operate profit-orientated. You can buy a litre of mineral oil for around 1.50 euros. The same amount of organic oil costs three to four euros. Manufacturers who opt for organic products must reckon with the following consequences: Either your own profit margin shrinks significantly, or you have to sell the end product at a higher price and thus lose market share because the customer prefers to buy the cheaper product. In this respect, business management simply trumps nature. In reality, the big lubricant manufacturers have an organic product in their range in order to maintain the appearance of sustainability. However, there is usually no real interest in stringently changing the product portfolio. This is because it would also involve extremely high conversion costs in production. That's a shame. I wish I had more competition. That would certainly stimulate business.
So the transition to a more sustainable future will only succeed if the industry wants it to?
Yes, demand is largely driven by the industry. Of course, as an end consumer I can buy an organic chain oil and thus act more sustainably than with a classic mineral oil. But it is also a fact that it takes large manufacturers to initiate a real trend reversal. The company Trickstuff, for example, is known for its high level of innovation and uses bio-based brake fluid for its brakes. For me, these are the first positive signals that have been sent out by a small company in this case. However, my experience over the years has been that the industry is under such high price pressure that a switch to bio-based brake fluid is out of the question for volume manufacturers such as Shimano. Even if we are only talking about additional costs in the cent range per brake.
It's actually crazy that products that don't harm the environment are more expensive than those that can cause environmental damage. The path to a more sustainable future is therefore blocked. Does that demotivate you in your work?
It is not that simple and absolute. Organic products are initially more expensive for the customer or the industry. However, if the costs to society as a whole are taken into account, the tide turns. If the purchase price of a product was not only taken into account, but also the potential environmental impact, which is ultimately borne by society as a whole, the price level would be adjusted. With the CO2 tax, the legislator is already initiating a process of change in this direction. And it is quite conceivable that further laws will be introduced in the near future that will give truly organic products an economic advantage. I'm generally not very worried about the future. At the moment, my organic lubricants are in high demand, especially in the USA. Perhaps this trend generated by the end consumer has the potential to make the industry rethink in the long term. As far as bike sports are concerned, I'm more confident anyway. Anyone who rides a mountain bike through the forest has a close connection to nature and wants to preserve it as it is. I think that with a little sensitisation, bikers would be prepared to pay a little more for chain oil out of their own interest if the environment is not harmed in return.
If everyone suddenly favoured organic lubricants, would there even be enough natural resources to produce them? Or would we only be cycling through sunflower fields in future?
Currently, the majority of bio-oils are added to fuels. Diesel from the petrol station has an organic content of around seven percent. In my view, this is a total waste. Because the oil is simply burnt. It would make more sense to reduce this bio-content in the fuel and use the bio-oil for products that - like chain oil - evaporate into the environment. After all, the greatest damage caused by lubricants simply occurs when they are released into the environment. There are also studies that show that a large proportion of oil is not disposed of correctly by private users. So you have to assume that oil purchased by end users will end up in normal waste water sooner or later. The situation is different for workshops or industrial companies. Knowing this, it makes even more sense to opt for biodegradable products when it comes to lubricants. But back to the actual question: the natural resources, i.e. on balance the arable land available for sunflowers, would be sufficient to cover the demand even if demand were significantly higher. However, I also like the idea of trails through the sunflower fields.
In addition to Danico Biotech, Canyon, Schwalbe, Sram, Syntace and Trickstuff are also taking part in our RIDE-GREEN campaign. In the next issues of BIKE, we will take a look at other partners who are contributing a product to our project. In BIKE 1/2022 we then want to present the Complete, sustainable mountain bike present.
