Thanks to Reef, The Wuss Productions, and Voda Films for producing this slick edit.

We hope you do the same, and while a couple of the program details are slightly off, we are very proud to see the W2W program featured in hallowed pages of SURFER, and it seems pretty fitting it came out just in time for the Earthday weekend!

And how’s that air from ECOBOARD Project test pilot (and all around cool guy) Torrey Meister on his “Green Machine” surfboard, shaped from a Marko recycled EPS blank (by Ventura-based shaper ROBERTS). This Surf Ambassador for Sustainable Surf rips so hard in everything from 10 inches to 10 feet (and beyond), and has such a positive stoke, how can it be that Torrey doesn’t have a major sponsor? Surf Industry – are you listening?

To see Torrey launch that air in “reel time” click HERE!

Same board, same stoke - different air...

You can read all about it right HERE!

And yep, Channel Islands has now made Kelly a few ECOBOARDS for his current quiver, so I know we will be looking to see him ripping as hard as ever on those boards in 2013 – but with less of an environmental impact left in his wake…

http://business.transworld.net/122579/features/the-ecoboard-project-founders-on-eco-certified-surfboard-materials-new-sima-partnership/

Consider this story as a teaser for the upcoming launch of our ECOBOARD Project. This new program has 2 basic components:  Part 1: an “eco-stamp” for helping to identify/verifiy a surfboard made with more sustainable materials, and Part 2: a marketplace to help connect surfboard builders, to surfers who want greener surfboard options. For a preview, check out our guide and description to Sustainable Surfboard Technology.

When Green Is Rad (Forbes May 5, 2012) (pdf link to article)

Full text of the article is below:

WHEN GREEN IS RAD
By Todd Woody

This story appears in the May 7, 2012 issue of Forbes Magazine: Photo by Chris Leschinsky / Getty Images

http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddwoody/2012/04/19/surfings-toxic-secret/

As I paddle out into the surf on a crystal clear California morning, brown pelicans swoop low over the ocean, and a flock of seagulls of Hitchcockian proportions soar above a deserted beach where a harbor seal lolls in the sunshine. With surfers carving the face of a wave breaking off this reef just north of Santa Cruz, it’s the kind of nature-boy scene that sells billions of dollars of surf apparel and gear to coastal dwellers and landlocked wannabes. There’s nothing pristine about what’s under our feet, though. The typical surfboard is a slab of petroleum-spawned polyurethane slathered in layers of toxic polyester resin. Gnarly, and not in a good way.

While we sit astride our Hummers a guy paddles up on the surfboard equivalent of a Tesla Roadster. Michael Stewart’s cantaloupe-colored “fish” boasts a 100% recycled polystyrene foam core coated in a bio-based resin and fins molded from recycled carpet. A logo declares Stewart’s ride has been verified as an Ecoboard by his nonprofit startup, Sustainable Surf.

The San Francisco social entrepreneurs aim to create an industry certification standard for environmentally friendly surfboards to give surfers, from pros to weekend wave warriors, a scientifically sound green choice. Surfboards are just a $150 million business in the U.S., but for Stewart and his San Clemente-based cofounder, Kevin Whilden, the iconic symbol of the sport is a Trojan horse to make the $7 billion surf industry and the lifestyles of millions of surfers more sustainable. “If we can green up the surfboard then we can green up surfers,” says Stewart, 42, a lifelong surfer who has spent his recent career evaluating the carbon footprint of everything from Motorola cellphones to Volkswagens.

A life cycle analysis conducted by Sustainable Surf and others shows that the materials used in an Ecoboard result in a 55% reduction in its carbon footprint over a conventional surfboard, for only about $100 more per board. “Literally overnight we could cut the environmental impact of the toxicity of our toys and keep things out of the landfill simply by switching to newer and better materials,” Stewart says. That, of course, also reduces boardmakers’ toxic exposure.

Still, no easy task given that the surf industry has been surprisingly slow to grapple with its carbon footprint. Sure, surfers and groups such as the Surfrider Foundation fight ocean pollution, and companies like Patagonia have long been leaders in sustainability. But the surf industry is like no other. Quiksilver, Reef and other big apparel brands may dominate the bottom line, but it’s a group of iconoclastic surfboard craftsmen with names like Mayhem and Stretch and the elite pro surfers who ride their boards who create the image that sells surf couture.

For them it’s all about performance on the waves. A Nascar driver doesn’t particularly care how many miles per gallon his souped-up Chevy Malibu gets, and surfers likewise obsess about speed. For half a century that has meant building boards out of polyurethane, which accounts for about 74% of the market. EPS—expanded polystyrene—is a newer material that involves a more benign manufacturing process. EPS surfboards can also be made from recycled material, such as ubiquitous Styrofoam packaging. “It’s difficult to get some of those old-timers to switch and embrace the new technologies,” says Clay Peterson, an owner of Marko Foam, noting that his Irvine, Calif. company’s recycled Envirofoam “blank” (the precursor to a finished board) accounts for only 10% of current sales.

To change that mind-set, Stewart and Whilden are making deals with the big surf brands that sponsor top surfers and world tour contests as well as tapping a network of surfing executives from companies like Google and Disney  who serve on Sustainable Surf’s advisory board. Last fall Sustainable Surf helped slash the environmental impact of Rip Curl’s San Francisco Pro Search competition by diverting 90% of the waste generated. In April the Association of Surfing Professionals signed up Sustainable Surf to provide green guidelines for all North American pro events. “If we can get a Joel Parkinson or Jordy Smith to ride a recycled Ecoboard on tour this year, that would be rad,” says ASP North America tour manager Brian Robbins, referring to two star surfers.

Reef, which sponsors a surf team, is backing Sustainable Surf’s Waste to Waves program, which collects Styrofoam packaging at surf shops to be recycled into Envirofoam. The company is also working with Stewart on developing the company’s internal sustainability initiatives. Reef executive Brandon Rich says the company is considering collecting plastic bottles to be refashioned into board shorts.

Mark Marovich, e-commerce director at eyewearmaker SPY Optic, says supporting the Ecoboard initiative will set him apart from competitors. He also wants to put the surfboards in the hands of SPY Optic’s surf team. “I was just surfing in El Salvador on an Ecoboard—you can’t tell the difference,” says Marovich, a Sustainable Surf board member. “The problem is that the public doesn’t know they can get their boards made that way.”

Quiksilver, the $2 billion surf giant, is in talks with Sustainable Surf about supporting the Ecoboard program through its foundation and supplying green surfboards to its team, which includes 11-time world champion Kelly Slater. “It’s a no-brainer the industry should stand behind something like this,” says Ryan Ashton, director of the Quiksilver Foundation, noting the company now sells Quiksilver-branded boards made by star shapers.

The Surf Industry Manufacturers Association is supportive. “SIMA encourages efforts from Sustainable Surf and any  other groups currently working on an industry standard,” Sean Smith, the trade group’s executive director, said in an e-mail. “While the environment and preservation of the ocean is always SIMA’s biggest concern, the integrity of the sport and performance is also a priority.”

Stewart still has to win over surfboard makers like William “Stretch” Riedel, one of the top shapers in the business. After our morning surf Stewart loads his Stretch-made Ecoboard into his biodiesel-powered Jetta wagon, and we swing by the Stretch Boards factory in Santa Cruz. Riedel has been shaping boards since 1979 and now uses only EPS blanks and bioresins. But he’s not talking it up.

“I really didn’t start doing this to be green at all. I really went for performance, as I could make lighter, stronger boards,” says Riedel, puffing on his trademark stogie as he stands by an ocean-blue Ecoboard Stewart ordered for a Google executive. “The performance of the materials is really what makes this the greenest. It’s really hard to break this board, so the customer is buying one board instead of two or three boards over time. Plus polyester resin is gnarly.”

Catching The Next Wave In Sustainable Surfing
by Todd Woody

The sustainable surfboard is here but will Kelly Slater ride one?

For an insurgent group of surfers campaigning to green up the $7 billion surfing industry, Slater, an 11-time world champion, and other pro’s are key to changing the way surfers think about the iconic symbol of their nature-dependent sport, which ironically is a hunk of petroleum-based polyurethane laminated with toxic polyester resin.

Now there’s an alternative to the dinosaur-derived surfboard – the Ecoboard, a standard for a non-toxic, recycled surfboard developed by Sustainable Surf, a San Francisco non-profit founded by Michael Stewart and Kevin Whilden, surfers and social entrepreneurs with a background in creating sustainable products.

“We’ve got to get these boards into the hands of the pro’s,” said Stewart at a recent event at Saatchi & Saatchi S’s San Francisco office to launch the Ecoboard project.

Why? Flip through Surfer magazine or tune into a Rip Curl contest and try to separate the pro surfers from the products and lifestyle they’re pushing – everything from sunglasses and board shorts to surfboards and wetsuits. Get the surf gods to ride green, the thinking goes, and the masses will get onboard.

Easier said than done, however. I wrote about Sustainable Surf last April in a Forbes magazine story as Stewart and Whilden began their efforts to change a tribal industry literally stuck in the 1950s when it comes to making surfboards.

For more than a half a century most surfboard blanks – the core of a board – have been made from polyurethane, which ends up in landfills when surfers break their boards. Polyurethane boards are coated in polyester resin, another toxic substance that poses health hazards to surfboard makers – which is why glassers wear respirators as they laminate boards.

But another type of foam, expanded polystyrene, or EPS, can be recycled and manufactured more benignly. And companies like Entropy Resins make non-toxic bio-based laminates.

Even so, many surfboard makers, surf shop owners and surfers have resisted EPS boards, believing the conventional wisdom that polyurethane offers superior performance.

That’s beginning to change, however, judging by the crowd of surfers, big-name board makers and other surf industry honchos that jammed the offices of Saatchi & Saatchi S, the sustainability practice of the advertising and marketing giant started by Adam Werbach, a surfer and former president of the Sierra Club.

According to Sustainable Surf’s criteria, a surfboard qualifies for the Ecoboard label if its core is made from a minimum 40% recycled foam or biological content (think soy ) and the resin is produced from at least 15% bio-based materials. An Ecoboard costs about $50 more than a conventional surfboard but it cuts its carbon footprint by 40%, according to a lifecycle analysis conducted by Sustainable Surf.

A key requirement of the standard is that Ecoboards perform at least as well as conventional surfboards and require minimal change in the manufacturing process.

On display at Saatchi & Saatchi was an Ecoboard made by Matt “Mayhem” Biolos, a top shaper and owner of San Clemente, Calif.-based Lost Enterprises, as well as Ecoboards from Timmy Patterson, Hobie and Stretch Boards. Also on hand was Mark Price, chief executive of Firewire Surfboards, which has agreed to sell boards that meet Ecoboard standards for resin, Ryan Ashton, executive director of the Quiksilver Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the surf industry giant, and Jim Moriarty, chief executive of the Surfrider Foundation.

To prove the environmental bone fides of green surfboards, Todd Patterson from E-Tech Glassing set up shop in the middle of Saatchi & Saatchi’s offices and, surrounded by onlookers, laminated several boards, including one for pro surfer Shaun Tomson. (Werbach looked on a little nervously given that surfboard making is usually a toxic affair.)

Sustainable Surf has made inroads with pro surfers. Big wave rider Greg Long has an Ecoboard, according to Stewart, and he showed a video of pro Torrey Meister ripping it up on green surfboard. Meanwhile, the operators of Telo Island Lodge, a high-end surf camp in Indonesia, attended the Ecoboard launch and plan to order an entire quiver of green boards for their clients, Stewart says.

But during a panel discussion, it was clear that green isn’t good enough to persuade most surfboard buyers to switch to an Ecoboard. Will Hutchinson, co-founder of the Proof Lab surf shop in Mill Valley, Calif., said his customers aren’t particularly eco-minded but they’ll buy Ecoboards for their performance and pedigree.

Case in point: Hutchinson bought the Lost Ecoboard that was being auctioned at the Saatchi & Saatchi event for his shop and it sold in a day.

“They didn’t buy if for environmental reasons at all,” Hutchinson, who holds an MBA in sustainable management from Presidio Graduate School, said in an e-mail. “He just wanted it because it looked incredible, epoxy, had a similar Lost that he liked and wanted to complement it, etc. The environmental angle was just a bonus not the selling point, which I think is great and how it has to be to go mainstream.”

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SIMA throws the ECOBOARD Project a big Shaka... photo credit: Jim Moriarty of his own Mandala ECOBOARD

IT’S OFFICIAL FOLKS -  The Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA)  has endorsed the ECOBOARD Project as an innovative new resource for its Board Builder members to use.

Ok, so what’s that mean? So for the for the few of you who didn’t attend the program’s recent launch party in San Fransisco – The ECOBOARD Project is a multifaceted program that ultimately helps surfers choose a high-performance sustainable surfboard made with a reduced environmental and toxic impact.

The ECOBOARD Project provides the first, independent 3rd party “eco-label” for surfboards, that verifies the use of more sustainable materials made with the latest advancements in green chemistry, recycled and renewable materials.  Materials…that have that have passed a science-based “Benchmark” for providing a significant reduction in environmental impacts, especially related to our oceans and waves.

I don’t want to ruin the suspense, so check out the full Press Release below, as well as some of the cool pics of ECOBOARDS that are just starting to come out from top shapers and surfbrands that you already know and love including: Lost, Firewire, Channel Islands, T.Patterson, Stretch, Hobie  and many more. And if you don’t see your favorite shaper on our list, tell them to sign up online here!

————————————————————–

For Immediate Release

SIMA ENDORSES THE ECOBOARD PROJECT TO ENCOURAGE THE USE OF SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS IN SURFBOARDS

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. (February 21, 2013) — The SIMA (Surf Industry Manufacturers Association) Board of Directors has officially endorsed the ECOBOARD Project, which provides a sustainable materials benchmark and helps bring clarity to the surfboard marketplace by verifying the use of more sustainable materials in surfboards. The ECOBOARD Project was developed by Sustainable Surf, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

The ECOBOARD Project helps consumers choose a high-performance sustainable surfboard made with a reduced environmental and toxic impact. The ECOBOARD label is the first, independent 3rd party, consumer facing “eco-label” for surfboards. It verifies the use of more sustainable materials in surfboards, made with the latest advancements in green chemistry, recycled and renewable materials.

“The SIMA Board of Directors and Board Builder Committee believes endorsing the ECOBOARD Project is an important step for the shaping community,” said Shea Weber, chair of the SIMA Board Builder Committee and president of Dewey Weber Surfboards. “This program will help surfboard builders develop new products for an evolving marketplace, as well as prepare for tighter regulations on PU/PE surfboards, all while working towards the ultimate goal of reducing the impact to oceans and waves from surfboards. We’re thrilled to help promote a program which offers board builders and consumers alike a simple framework to follow for shaping or purchasing a more environmentally-friendly surfboard.”

To carry the ECOBOARD Project label, a surfboard must meet the requirements of the ECOBOARD Project Benchmark. It must be made from at least one of the following materials:

1. Blank: foam made from minimum 40% recycled foam or minimum 40% biological content
2. Resin: epoxy resin made from minimum 15% biological content with low VOCs
3. Alternative Structure: A surfboard structure made from sustainably sourced biological/renewable material (typically wood) that provides the majority of the surfboard’s material and structural integrity – and therefore significantly reduces the amount of foam or resin needed to build the board.
   

“It’s like the ‘Energy Star’ program for surfboards,” says Michael Stewart, co-founder and Partnerships Director for Sustainable Surf. “Our goal is to bring that same level of professionalism to the surfboard building industry, and to act as an impartial catalyst to help spur and promote innovation in this realm. The ECOBOARD Project Benchmark is readily achievable by manufacturers and is a meaningful first-step towards protecting our oceans and waves from the effects of sea level rise, ocean acidification and loss of coral reefs.”

The Benchmark uses science-based and transparent criteria to evaluate surfboard materials that are made with green chemistry, recycled content, or renewable materials. All material manufacturers are encouraged to develop new products that meet the requirements of the ECOBOARD Project Benchmark for materials.

“Our program is based on industry best practices for sustainable product verification,” continues Stewart. “I previously managed very similar types of verification and certification programs for ‘greener’ consumer electronics from the globe’s largest manufacturers while working at Underwriters Laboratories — one of the world’s oldest (founded in 1894) and most respected certification organizations.”

Many leading shapers and brands have already joined the ECOBOARD Project to offer more sustainable surfboards. Current participants include Channel Islands Surfboards, Firewire Surfboards, Lost Surfboards, Hobie Surfboards, T.Patterson Surfboards, Stretch Surfboards, Dewey Weber Surfboards, and more.

Surfers who want an ECOBOARD Project labeled surfboard can find participating surfboard brands or shapers on the ECOBOARD Project website. Interested shapers and brands can sign up for the program via an online submission process which can also be found on the website. There is currently no cost for shapers/brands to join the program, as early funding for the ECOBOARD Project has been provided by charitable donations from several leading non-profit foundations.

“We feel that surfboards can become one of the world’s leading examples of sustainable technology and innovation,” says Kevin Whilden, co-founder and Executive Director of Sustainable Surf. “Surfing is such an engaging lifestyle sport. It captures the attention of today’s global youth, who are keenly aware of sustainability.”

SIMA will be communicating information to its board builder members about the ECOBOARD Project in the coming months through a special section on www.sima.com <http://www.sima.com> and in SIMA’s Board Builder newsletter, Shapes. Stay tuned for information about a special Board Builder Boot Camp seminar as well.

ABOUT SIMA
The Surf Industry Manufacturers Association (SIMA) is the official working trade association of more than 300 surf industry suppliers. Founded in 1989, SIMA is a non-profit organization that serves to promote awareness of the surf industry and participation in the sport of surfing through public relations efforts and a variety of services, educational programs and research. In addition, SIMA actively supports oceanic environmental efforts through its 501(c)(3) charitable environmental foundation, the SIMA Environmental Fund. In the past 23 years, SIMA’s Environmental Fund has raised more than $6.2 million for environmental groups seeking to protect the world’s oceans, beaches and waves. The SIMA Humanitarian Fund, also a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation, was established to award grants to various surf or boardsport related social and humanitarian non-profit organizations whose efforts are focused on improving the quality of life, health and/or welfare of people. Since 2004 the SIMA Humanitarian Fund has raised and donated more than $1.58 million to surf-related non-profit humanitarian organizations. For more information regarding SIMA, please visit www.sima.com. Follow SIMA at Twitter.com/SIMA_SURF.

ABOUT SUSTAINABLE SURF
Sustainable Surf is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that engages surfing consumers with engaging environmental campaigns, that educate surfers about the lifestyle choices they can take to lower their impacts on the ocean environment. Sustainable Surf works in partnership with key players within the surfing industry to help implement these campaigns, to showcase how business can be an important driver toward solving the world’s environmental issues. Visit www.sustainablesurf.org <http://www.sustainablesurf.org> for more information about all our programs, including the ECOBOARD Project.

Support for the ECOBOARD Project has been provided by charitable donations from foundations including the Quiksilver Foundation and the Mimi and Peter Haas Foundation.

# # #

For press inquiries, contact:
Sean Smith, Executive Director, SIMA
E-mail: sean@sima.com
Phone: 949.366.1164 x6

Kevin Whilden, Executive Director, Sustainable Surf
E-mail: Kevin@sustainablesurf.org
Phone: 503-381-6729