We definitely enjoy a good papercraft motorcycle when we see it, but they’re usually models—not full-sized bikes. On March 24, 2022, Swedish electric bike OEM Cake announced the next step in its plan to lower its carbon footprint. It’s teaming up with another Swedish company called PaperShell, which creates a sustainable, natural fiber composite material that is said to be stronger than the plastic it would replace.
Even better, according to the companies, its carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per kilogram of material is much lower than plastic or fiberglass. How much lower? According to internal figures, the PaperShell composite comes in at 0.65 kilograms CO2e per kilogram of material, while polypropylene comes in at 4.95 kg CO2e and fiberglass at 25.05 kg CO2e. If those figures are accurate, the difference seems pretty impressive.
