23008_Nearshoring Report

Another example is bicycles , where government initiatives and socio-cultural factors are also driving demand: more people are cycling and governments at local and central levels are investing in more biking infrastructure and cycling friendly policies to improve the health of their citizens and reduce environmental impact of emissions from vehicles. These include wide-reaching initiative such as the EU’s European Green Deal (the EU’s ambitious climate policy that aims for Europe to become the first climate neutral continent by 2050) and its Urban Mobility Framework (its initiative to support the transition to cleaner, greener, and smarter mobility for people and freight in urban areas). Also there are increasingly more Low Emission Zones in city centres – for instance in Central London, Madrid, Rome, Amsterdam, Berlin and Stockholm with many more planned or due to be implemented in the near term – which limit the movement of vehicles in cities and mean that bicycles, cargo bikes and e-bikes are expected to see increased demand. According to forecasts from European cycling industry bodies, sales of all bicycles are expected to grow to 30 million units in 2030, up from just over 20 million in 2019, with demand for e-bikes dominating to reach more than half (17 million units) of the total, up from just 3.7 million in 2019.

ScS

In November 2022, UK furniture retailer ScS reported that during the last year, it had reviewed its furniture supplier base and “on-boarded a number of new suppliers across the UK and Europe, reducing … reliance on the Far East” as part of its strategies to “improve product quality, reduce the environmental impact, and reduce lead times”. Over 65% of the products ScS sells are now manufactured in the UK and Europe and says that its future strategies will involve “explor[ing] sourcing opportunities to reduce average lead times”.

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