Christian Meissner grew up far away from the ocean in Germany’s financial hub of Frankfurt, which meant long journeys to the coast to pursue his passion for surfing.
However, changing consumer preferences and demands for more sustainability within the surfing community has brought his focus closer to home.
The 51-year-old, whose day job is in construction, started making boards nine years ago in the landlocked city of Offenbach, near his hometown.
Photo: AFP
The idea was born after he helped his son craft a longboard for skateboarding, who could earn extra pocket money by selling similar boards to a local skateboard shop.
Unlike conventional surfboards, which rely on harmful materials, such as polyurethane foam, resin and fiberglass, Meissner’s business Mio — which stands for main ingredients: organic — uses wood from fast-growing paulownia trees.
In a sign that the material does the job, professional foil surfer Alex Soto won second place in hydrofoil freestyle at the Global Kitesports Association’s World Tour last year using a Mio board.
“Sustainability and high-performance can go hand in hand,” Meissner said.
The sport’s heavy ecological footprint jars with the nature-loving image of most surfers, and a growing number of boardmakers are trying to cater to their greener preferences.
It is a small step in what is likely to be a long journey to reduce the ecological impact of surfing, which for many requires long-distance flights to far-away destinations such as Hawaii, Indonesia or Australia.
While there have not been many attempts to quantify the sport’s exact effect on the environment, one researcher in 2009 said that a surfer’s carbon footprint was likely 50 percent higher than the average person’s, with the lion’s share of emissions coming from travel to the surf, and only 2 percent from board manufacturing.
With the ease of travel having increased significantly over the past decade, carbon emissions linked to surfing might have risen further.
Austria’s Woodboard, on Lake Neusiedl at the border to Hungary, is making similar efforts to Mio’s, drawing on Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood in its products.
Australia’s FCS Fins, one of the world’s largest makers of surfboard fins, uses recycled materials, while France’s Yuyo uses plastic trash to 3D print new boards.
Many of those companies have said that the toxic petrochemicals used in conventional surfboards can harm workers and the environment while they are made.
They have the potential to release harmful foam particles into the ground and the ocean if they are abandoned on a beach or in a landfill.
“The dust from shaping petrochemical material made me sick, so I started experimenting,” Meissner said, who started out making boards with traditional polyurethane-based foam, before switching to paulownia wood four years ago.
Paulownia trees are native to Asia, but have been grown across parts of Europe and North America. They can grow about 3m to 6m in a single year and reach maturity within 10 years. They produce lightweight and warp-resistant wood — perfect for kite boards and a range of other products, including musical instruments.
They also have stronger drought tolerance and carbon-capture properties, making them ideal for countries looking to offset carbon dioxide emissions.
“The surfboard industry has been one of our main consumers since we started commercializing European-grown paulownia wood,” said Anja Hartelt, a representative for iPaulownia, a Spanish paulownia wood supplier. “The demand has kept increasing over the years since surfers become more conscious on sustainability.”
With surfing rising in popularity — globally and at Germany’s rugged northern coasts — sustainably-sourced alternatives would help to supply a watersports equipment market that is expected to surpass US$13 billion this year, research firm Statista said.
Prominent surfers are throwing their weight behind efforts to make the industry greener.
Seven-time British surfing champion Lucy Campbell told the BBC that top brands “need to change,” and that she has turned down sponsorships from brands that she did not consider sustainable.
“You do want to encourage people to get outdoors,” she said. “But at the same time — at what cost to the planet?”
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
RSS