BRP, the company behind some of the most recognizable names in powersports — including Can-Am, Sea-Doo, and Ski-Doo — has rolled out a sweeping new sustainability program called "Beyond the Ride." The initiative lays out a concrete set of goals the company plans to hit by 2030, covering everything from factory emissions to how it picks its suppliers to the way it builds its machines.
For anyone who's spent time on a Can-Am side-by-side tearing through trails, or blasted across a lake on a Sea-Doo, the idea of the company going "green" might seem like a bit of a contradiction. These machines run hard, burn fuel, and chew up terrain. BRP isn't pretending otherwise. What the company is saying, though, is that it understands the land, water, and snow that make all of that possible are worth protecting — and that doing nothing isn't really an option.
The man at the top, Denis Le Vot, BRP's President and CEO, put it plainly when he said, "Beyond the Ride is about ensuring our industry grows in ways that are both exciting and responsible." Le Vot also noted that he was glad to kick off his tenure at the company with a program that speaks to both where BRP stands today and where it wants to go. That's a notable thing for a new CEO to lead with. It signals that this isn't just a PR move tacked onto a quarterly report — at least, that's what BRP wants people to believe.
So what exactly does the plan involve? It breaks down into three main areas: the environment, the social side of things, and how the company governs itself.
On the environmental front, BRP is targeting its own facilities first. The company wants to cut what are called Scope 1 and 2 emissions — basically the direct and indirect greenhouse gas output from its manufacturing operations — by 30 percent. It also wants at least 85 percent of the waste from each manufacturing site to be diverted away from landfills. And for facilities located in areas where water is already scarce, BRP plans to put site-specific plans in place to reduce freshwater use. All of this is to be done by 2030.
The supply chain is next on the list. BRP has a lot of suppliers, and when you're building everything from snowmobiles to electric three-wheelers, the upstream environmental footprint is significant. The company says it wants to start factoring carbon metrics into how it selects suppliers, with that process in place by 2028. Two years after that, BRP is aiming to have suppliers who are responsible for 70 percent of the company's supply chain emissions formally signed on to their own emission reduction plans. That's a meaningful ask — it means BRP is trying to extend its environmental expectations beyond its own walls and into the broader network of companies it works with.
Then there are the products themselves. This is where it gets interesting for the people who actually buy and ride these machines. BRP is committing to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions produced during the use of every new internal combustion engine model it introduces — targeting an average reduction of 4 percent per model. The company is also pushing forward on electric vehicles, though it's careful to tie that to customer demand rather than making a blanket promise to go all-electric. And it plans to keep working more recycled materials into both its products and packaging.
None of this is small talk. Reducing use-phase emissions across a whole lineup of off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, and watercraft requires real engineering work and real money. The 4 percent target per new ICE model might not sound dramatic, but applied across an entire product portfolio and compounded over multiple model generations, it adds up.
The social commitments in Beyond the Ride are just as specific. BRP has pledged to invest 1 percent of its pre-tax profits into community support. Some of that money flows through a program called Ride Out Intimidation, which is the company's global effort to combat bullying and intimidation. The company is also continuing its Responsible Rider program, which promotes safe and thoughtful riding habits among its employees, dealers, and customers through training and community partnerships. And BRP is holding firm on its "Zero Incident, Zero Impact" health and safety standard across all its facilities worldwide — meaning the goal is no workplace injuries, period.
The governance side of the program is less flashy but arguably just as important. BRP says it wants every permanent office employee and every member of its board of directors trained and certified in the company's Code of Ethics every single year. It's also putting guardrails around its use of artificial intelligence, committing to ethical standards and technological safeguards to make sure AI gets used responsibly inside the organization. Given how fast AI is changing the way companies operate, that's a forward-looking move worth paying attention to.
Elise Auvachez Millot, BRP's Vice-President of Public Affairs, Government Relations and Corporate Sustainability, described the broader intent of the program this way: "Beyond the Ride rallies our employees, partners, riders and communities around a shared ambition for progress, as everyone plays a role in shaping the future of our industry." She also made a point of emphasizing that the company believes sustainability and performance don't have to work against each other — that "small, consistent actions drive real lasting transformations."
That philosophy matters because the powersports world has a complicated relationship with environmentalism. The people who ride these machines are often the ones who spend the most time outdoors. They hunt, fish, camp, and explore. They have a genuine stake in keeping public lands accessible and wild spaces healthy. The argument BRP is making is that taking care of those places and building exciting machines don't have to be mutually exclusive goals.
Whether Beyond the Ride delivers on its promises remains to be seen. 2030 is close enough to be a real deadline but far enough away that accountability will require patience. The targets are specific, which is a good sign — vague sustainability pledges are easy to make and even easier to quietly abandon. Concrete numbers like a 30 percent emissions reduction or 70 percent supplier commitment give outside observers something to actually measure against.
For the powersports community, and for the millions of riders who depend on BRP machines to get them through trails, dunes, lakes, and snowfields, the hope is that the company means what it says. The trails aren't going to maintain themselves, and the environments that make riding worth doing need people in positions of power to take their protection seriously. If a major manufacturer like BRP can move the needle — even a little — the whole industry tends to follow.
That alone makes Beyond the Ride worth watching.
