Calculating how environmentally friendly an electric cargo bike is is incredibly complex. Thankfully the clever people at the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) have in it’s report titled Cycle more often 2 cool down the planet! Quantifying Co2 savings of cycling.
The report is well worth a full read, but in summary, for the purposes of this guide, you’ll be please to know yes, going by bike, even an electric one is much better for the planet.
Interestingly, when you factor in the production, maintenance and operation, the CO2 emissions per kilometre travelled for a regular bike Vs an e-bike are approximately the same, 22g CO2e verses 21g CO2e respectively.
This does make an assumption that a rider of an electric bike will require less ‘fuel’, so the food based emissions will be less.
Compared to the production, maintenance and operation of a car, 271g CO2e per kilometre per passenger it’s a massive reduction in emissions. Even a bus calculated the same way is 101g CO2e per kilometre per passenger.
Similar findings were found in another UK report, by We are Possible, Active Travel Academy and the KR Foundation, on the benefits of cargo bikes in London, The Promise of Low-Carbon Freight,  found that using a cargo bike was 1.61 times faster than a van, as well as save 3,896kg of CO2 and 5.5kg of NOx over the 98 days that the study surveyed.
Further afield, the same study also estimated that cargo bike journeys in Europe are now saving the equivalent co2 required to fly 24,000 people from London to New York AND BACK every month.