Sustainability is in our DNA. Chris founded the company in 1976 with two goals in mind; manufacture high quality bike parts in an environmentally responsible manner, and then have those parts outperform and outlast the competition, staying on bikes and out of the landfill.
These are still our main guiding principles.
Chris King Precision Components is the first company in the bike industry to meet the rigorous B Corporation standards, joining a movement to use “business as a force for good™”.
As a B Corporation we:
· Will be the change we seek in the world.
· Will conduct our business as if people and place matter.
· Will aspire, through our products, practices, and profits, to do no harm and benefit all.
· Will act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon one another and thus responsible for each other as well as our future generations.
One of over 3000 Certified B Corporations, we are the first component manufacturer in the bike industry to meet the rigorous standards, and so we hope to inspire other brands in the cycling industry to follow us.
B Corporations are purpose driven businesses that benefit all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
Let’s unpack that for a moment. When we say stakeholders, we mean you, we mean the planet, and we mean our employees. What we do has an impact on each of these groups. We recognize that it takes a lot of energy and resources to produce the raw materials that we machine into finished parts. And so, how we treat those materials, and how long our finished products last is the real measure of how well we’re serving our stakeholders.
The next step is offering our King Lifetime Warranty on all products. We can keep your parts running for life. If you ever damage a King component we will service it and replace the damaged parts. This is a commitment not only to the quality of our own parts, but it contributes to the life of your bicycle as well. This is why riders invest in King components.
In our manufacturing process we reclaim as many of the resources that have gone into making our raw materials as possible. We capture and separate all of the chips of aluminum and steel that are the by-products of turning barstock into our parts. We then strain and separate the cutting oil and compact the loose chips into dense pucks of material. This makes them easier to transport and more efficient to recycle.
The cutting oil recaptured from manufacturing is organic canola oil, not traditional cutting fluid which has to be changed often, creating large amounts of waste and cutting inconsistency, not to mention that it’s a skin irritant for workers. Our canola oil is US-sourced and has an infinite lifespan as long as we recapture and strain/centrifuge it. If, for some reason, we stop using it, it can still be recycled for other purposes. The choice to use organic canola means we have to machine more slowly than we would with a traditional cutting fluid, but we believe the environmental benefits far outweigh the cost of slower machining speeds.
Chris King Precision Components occupies a 73,000sq ft factory in Portland, Oregon. To reduce our energy needs for heating and cooling, we designed and built a 3000 gallon water mass loop. This circulating water mass runs throughout the entire building and is connected to all elements that generate or need heating/cooling. For example; our heat-treating vacuum autoclave, our lasers, many of the machines on the shop floor, the walk-in cooler in our cafe, and the IT server room are all connected to this system via heat pumps. This allows us to transfer the heat generated through our daily processes to the water mass and store it there until night time when we can use the ambient air temperature outside to cool the water mass and start the cycle over again. In the winter, we can take this heat and redistribute it to heat all of the offices in the building. The system meets all our heating or cooling needs for two-thirds of the year and greatly reduces the energy we use in the coldest and warmest months.
Being a Certified B Corporation goes well beyond our environmental efforts. Our commitment flows through our supply chain choices, our hiring practices, and our workers’ well being program. We are the change we seek in the world, and we are not nearly done yet. We encourage all our partner in the cycling industry and beyond to follow.
Find more information about becoming a Certified B Corporation here.