Eco-gym

I think a big reason why many people do not choose to be environmentally friendly is because it in many cases costs more than the non-environmentally friendly option.

A few years ago I read an article about "Eco-gym" in Metro that showed numbers of how many households a hall with 20 spinning bikes could generate electricity to if the bikes where used extensively for a year. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact numbers but after Googling ”Eco-gym”, I came across an article about a gym in Portland, USA, whose ambition is to be completely self-sufficient when it comes to electricity. When the article was written, in 2010, the owner said that the 200 members who trained at the gym did not generate enough electricity for the 280 sq. m large facility to be carbon-neutral, but if all the training equipment would be used at the same time, it could generate twice as much electricity as the facility needs.

The gym in the article is not the first Eco-gym in the world but it still raises my attention because this business concept creates an opportunity to reduce the price range if the equipment manages to generate as much electricity as is needs. Because that would mean that the electricity costs would disappear. I think the idea is very good because it does not require more effort for an individual to work out in a eco-gym than in a regular gym. It could even result in, that you would pay less for the eco-gym.

However, the purchase cost of these machines is probably higher than the non-electricity-generating equipment and therefore this business concept involves higher initial costs.

The bottom line of this blog post is that I think it is important for entrepreneurs to develop a business concept where people contribute to sustainable development even though they do not change their lifestyle because many people today are not willing to change their way of living.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2032281,00.html