On Bike to Work Day, at an event that brought together representatives of cycle activism and the third sector, companies and public authorities at Sesc Pinheiros, the SP Bike to Work Award, an initiative of Bike Angel and the Ethos Institute, in its first edition. The award, unprecedented in Latin America, aims to recognize and promote good business practices in support of bicycles. The event sought to show that, in addition to contributing to mobility, the use of bicycles in everyday life can and should be part of a health promotion strategy.

Itaú Unibanco was awarded in the large companies category for the impact and reach of its actions. With initiatives that are now well-known to Brazilians, mainly due to the shared bicycle system that it launched in the country, Itaú Unibanco had to work hard to encourage its own employees to use bicycles. Natália Cerri, from Itaú Unibanco's institutional relations department, says that "a trainee at the company, a cyclist who had always associated the bank's image with bicycles, was disappointed when he realized that he could not find any parking spaces at the company's bike racks and had to formally request this request." Since then, Itaú Unibanco has doubled the number of parking spaces at all of its administrative centers in São Paulo.

Encouraging companies to commute by bicycle to work could have an impressive impact in cities like São Paulo, since 50% of bicycle trips in the capital correspond to commutes to work, according to Guillermo Petzhold, mobility specialist at WRI – World Resources Institute, in his speech. The Ethos Institute, a partner in this edition of the award, has just released a guide of indicators on urban mobility for companies, a tool that can also be valuable in this process.