The non-profit organization Sustainable Surf, the leader is creating surfboards out of recycled materials and guidelines for green events, has partnered with ASP North America for the 2012 season. This could set new standards for action sports events in general.
The goal of the partnership is to provide a useful framework for looking at event operations that can help reduce the environmental impacts of all contests, regardless of size and budget, and that will provide a common platform for ensuring greener events this year.
“This is a big step forward for us at ASP North America and we’re really excited about the opportunity to offer sustainability guidelines to our events to help decrease our impact on the environment,” Meg Bernardo, ASP North America Executive Manager said. “The ASP feels it’s a necessary step to look after our ocean and having Sustainable Surf on our side is a great asset to our events. We’re looking forward to working with them throughout the 2012 season, to help provide guidance directly to events that want it.”
Sustainable Surf’s success in providing guidelines and consulting services for events has already proven to be effective, as they played an integral role in greening the 2011 Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco, which has been referred to as the greenest ASP surfing contest in history. Entering 2012 all event sponsors will have the option to capitalize on Sustainable Surf’s expertise in a tailor-made format for each contest.
“We are proud to be partnering with ASP-North America to provide a comprehensive, yet adaptable set of guidelines, that focus on the five major categories that most contribute to the footprint of any event,” Michael Stewart, Co-Founder of Sustainable Surf, said. “Sustainable Surf will also offer strategy and evaluation services to the events themselves, to help showcase their success stories in implementing the new guidelines at whatever level possible.”
Darren Brilhart, owner of Brillo Productions and longtime producer of major ASP North America events, worked closely with Sustainable Surf at the Rip Curl Pro Search San Francisco and is pleased to have their guidance in making more environmentally conscious decisions for future events.
“It was a great experience and eye opener working with Sustainable Surf at last year’s Rip Curl Pro Search Somewhere in San Francisco,” Brilhart said. “They are very thorough on what they do and it blew me away.”
Several ASP North America events have already taken the initial steps in the greening of their events, including the use of bio-diesel fuel for power, recycled materials for branding and heavily reducing the use of plastic water bottles. Kevin Whilden, Sustainable Surf Co-founder, thinks this partnership is a win-win for the entire surfing industry and feels Sustainable Surf’s expertise will allow events to further reduce the overall environmental impact.
“Many brands have already shown real initiative by taking some great steps towards the greening of their events, and the comprehensive framework of the new ASP North America’s green guidelines will help them to track, manage and communicate all their efforts,” Whilden said. “These best practices can be cost effective and easy to implement, and will further set the surfing industry on a leadership path that is consistent with surfing’s global image as an eco-friendly lifestyle.”
The next stop on the 2012 ASP North America season is the ASP PRIME Nike Lowers Pro, which is held at Lower Trestles from May 1 through 5, 2012.
