Uber is splitting its annual product occasion into two separate gatherings in an effort to place extra emphasis on its efforts to go carbon impartial.

The primary occasion, entitled Go/Get, will likely be held Could seventeenth in New York Metropolis and can concentrate on “household and journey,” the corporate mentioned. The second will likely be known as Go/Get Zero and will likely be convened in London on June eighth. That occasion will spotlight the assorted methods Uber plans to sort out local weather change.

The selection to carry the sustainability occasion in London isn’t any accident. The town is a microcosm of the corporate’s efforts to inexperienced its platform, with 15 % of the corporate’s car kilometers traveled executed in electrical automobiles. Uber drivers in London are additionally the first to get entry to a fleet of EVs by the corporate’s expanded partnership with rental automobile firm Hertz.

The issue is actually monumental, and Uber’s objectives aren’t assured success. A latest examine from Carnegie Mellon discovered that journeys in Uber and Lyft automobiles generate round 20 % extra greenhouse gases than common personal automobiles. The offender is “deadheading,” by which ridehail drivers cruise round with no passengers within the automobile between trip requests.

The disproportionate quantity of air pollution generated by Uber and Lyft automobiles has prompted some governments to mandate that ridehail corporations go carbon impartial. The state of California and New York Metropolis have each mentioned the businesses will likely be required to be zero emission by 2030.

However getting the hundreds of thousands of people that drive for Uber and Lyft to modify to electrical automobiles will likely be no simple job. Ridehail drivers are labeled as impartial contractors, and lots of use their private vehicles to drive for not only one however a number of gig financial system corporations. Additionally, EVs are typically dearer than fuel automobiles regardless of costing much less to gas and preserve. That steep upfront value might make it a problem for a lot of drivers, who usually function with extremely tight margins, to make the change.