Thoughts on Sustainability

Our company is taking the first steps in making surfboards a more sustainable product. After all we play in the sea and travel around the world to experience perfect waves and wonderful new cultures yet when we surf we do it on a pretty toxic, non green platform. These are just the first steps and I think it is important to look at the bigger picture lifecycle as manufacturing has moved farther from the source of use and consider the real costs. The real costs don't get paid by the consumer but by society as a whole. As I study and think about sustainablilty in my own world, I have come across a few things I thought I should pass on...

Freedom, autonomy and equality are paramount. If cars are meant to expand freedom and you end up sitting in traffic, then the original objective has failed. And if the cars can only be manufactured in large scale systems that create large concentrations of economic power then it is inequality. In an agreeable and equitable society, the guitar is more valuable than the CD player, the library more valuable than the classroom, the vegetable garden more valuable than the supermarket and creative work more valuable than working for a wage. Achievements for the common good, not the production of consumer goods, are the most important.
Ivan Illich

Gather your friends, go to the farmer's market and collect the gifts nutured by the heroes of our land, create a magnificent meal, invite people you don't know, take a long time to eat and truly taste every morsel. Make sure there is at least one song between every course. Revel in the mystery and what you are experiencing. Know that taste is how we know the land, change the world, and transform ourselves. If we did this everyday there is no need for hope, we are the world we imagine.
Paul Hawken