The Aotearoa Bike Challenge happens every year as part of the Love to Ride international online community that uses behavior change principles to encouraging cycling and make the world “a cleaner, greener, more awesome place to be.” Data collected by the organisation over many years shows participating in Love to Ride challenges achieves “sustained behaviour change” with 40% of previous non-cyclists starting to ride weekly, 31% of them cycling to work.

This year, the Aotearoa Bike Challenge set a target of one million kilometres for transportation, and smashed the target a whole week early, saving over 180,000kg CO₂ from entering the atmosphere.

The challenge lasted the month of February and we are very proud to be able to say that, spread over 347 rides, and including 1,142 commuter kilometres, Resolve Group achieved a grand total of 5,384 kilometres, saving 343 kilograms of CO₂ and placing us first in Auckland consultancies with 20-49 staff.

Our Top Riders

Kathleen Munson rode 506ks for ‘fun and fitness’, while Dawn Collyns’s 299ks  were exclusively commuting. Daryl Lim rode 783ks, and Stuart McDougall 725ks, mostly commuting, as did Tim Christensen with 300kms and  Ben Sherriff (below, centre) with 230ks. Tim Mueller (below, left), who lives and works in beautiful  Tāhuna  (Queenstown), clocked up 654ks cycling the many trails around Otago. But it was Jack Jiang (below, right), who says, “I ride because I’m too lazy to walk,” who outshone everyone, with a huge total of 1095 kilometres, a significant number of them with kids! Ka Mau te Wehi!

A recognised leader in sustainability and transport, smart cities and environmental management, Louise is passionate about helping cities become more liveable and find their place in nature. A self-confessed auto-didact, Louise also knows that bringing people along on that journey is vital.

I love listening to people and researching new subject matter, in books, online and through my social networks. Everyone can teach you something, and I intend to learn all the way through my life. 

Louise notes that sustainability professionals cannot get by without a strong head for business and she is no exception, having always had to prove the sustainable transport projects she’s led have tangible benefits. Building on her master’s degree in economics, policy and environmental science, she spent two years in finance at the beginning of her career and was recognised as one of the best commercial project managers in the legacy Opus business, both for management systems and results.

With a history of finding simple, practical and understandable solutions to complex problems, Louise has been sought out as a valued strategic advisor to answer questions such as: ‘what does a smart city mean to Auckland?, ‘why do business cases keep leading us to car-based infrastructure outcomes?’ and ‘how can we decarbonise our transport system, fast?’.

An independent, original and deep thinker, Louise particularly enjoys taking on challenges where more than one brain is required to solve a problem or balance a dilemma, and combines this with an empathetic and collaborative leadership style that inspires and motivates people, resulting in high quality outcomes.

I have a mind that can envisage the end goal and then build the system to get there, bringing teams and stakeholders with me on that journey.

Louise relishes challenges and is a capable project manager and a confident speaker with more than 20 years’ experience in delivering successful projects. She has joined Resolve Group looking for opportunities to work on transport planning, business cases, research, project and programme management and, of course, sustainability. She is particularly interested in applying her extensive knowledge and experience of Traffic Demand Management, Vehicle Kilometres Travelled reduction and behaviour change, shared mobility, on-demand transport and the first/last mile.