Jaime Vidau
alaine garro
Inés Abadía
Isabel Morán
Lorenzo Cappelletti
Pablo Echevarne
Universidad de Navarra
Isabel Rodriguez Tejedo
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FireWire has innovated in its sector by making surfboards that are both high performance and have a lower impact on the environment. By lowering their carbon footprint, it mainly helps achieving the Climate Action SDG. Some actions that must be taken to achieve these goals are exactly some of the things FireWire does to help the environment. For example, recycling bottles to make their products, creating eco-friendly products, and making donations to a charity helping goal 13.
This innovation consists of making surfboards as ecological as possible, making use of a wide variety of eco materials that already existed, but have been used before in this sector. Nuno Amado told as how 20% of the materials used are ecological or biodegradable, which although seems small, is the maximum they can achieve nowadays with the materials offered in the market.
As mentioned before, this company mainly helps the Climate action SDG, due to the efforts they make to reduce the toxicity of their business practices. Starting from the materials used to produce a surfboard, we can see how they have taken a huge step forward in order to fight climate change. Nuno has given in detail the benefit and the differences of their ecoboard compared to a usual board:
A surfboard is divided into 3 parts: First, the core is made of EPS, a material for which there is currently no environmentally friendly alternative on the market. They are aware that they need to change this but there are still no sustainable materials that can be replaced. However, the surfboard is also made of 2 other materials: Fiberglass and the resin. “We are currently investing in the creation of a fiberglass made with basalt, although with the fiber currently used in the boards are already 50% more ecological than those of the competitors” (Nuno Amado). And lastly, FireWire has managed to reduce the pollution of the resin by 50%, which is what mostly pollutes the sea in case of conventional surfboards.
The changes in the material they use is their main strength, as even though it is still not 100% ecologic, they are little by little getting there. We believe it’s a big change because if we, as consumers, start buying this type of products, apart from benefiting the environment, we will push companies to search for new materials that will lead to discovering a 100% ecoboard.
Apart from these, there are many things that can be done as a company to help climate action. Firstly, recycle. FireWire clearly does a great job, as 100% of their leashed are created with plastic bottles. Furthermore, “in 2017 FireWire donated product and funds that exceeded 5% of our 2017 net profit to the Surfrider Foundation, Share the Stoke Foundation and SurfAid to name 3 of the most visible”, which according to the global goals, is a positive action anyone can take to help achieving the 13th goal.
This company was created by two Australian men named Nev and Burger, who started in 2004 with the idea of making ecological boards that were also high-end. “They started with few resources, in a garage, making surfboards, but wanting to do something different and sustainable”. They started the company with the idea of making surfboards with 100% ecological materials, but they never achieved this since they were only able to make prototypes of very poor quality that still weren’t very sustainable.
The first two years, they only focused on having a positive impact but in the end, it was and is a for profit business that needs clients’ approval to continue production. So after these 2 years, they saw that they were not achieving their goal, nor were they getting considerably closer to it. “Even if the company was the most sustainable as possible, the feedback got from the clients was really bad, due to the bad quality of the products”. Therefore they changed the company's goal to focus on creating high quality surfboards while using as many ecological materials as possible, thus reducing the impact on the environment.
The big change started when Mark Pryce joined the company, who is the current CEO and whose arrival also changed the company's name (initially Buger Boards) to FireWire. (FireWire) “is a nickname that surfers in Australia have given to the good, fast, and strong waves”. Mark really changed the business’ mindset into finding the best alternatives to the most harmful materials used such as resin. In conclusion “achieved to do the best performing surfboard, while being as sustainable as possible”.
From there, the company began to produce more than surfboards, producing other accessories and parts as well. They state that the main motivation to create FireWire, was to change the mindset of people, and start investing in more durable products that will have a positive impact in the long run.
Firewire has been trying to measure its impact since the start of their project, concerning the environmental effect of the products.
An ecoboard lifecycle study was made in 2016, comparing the carbon footprint of a standard “poly” surfboard with an ecoboard made of bio-based epoxy resin and recycled content EPS blank, like the ones produced by FireWire.
Firewire uses industry best-practices to minimize resin, foam, and wood waste, while also up- cycling waste materials that are created.
The company provided vital information to support this study. The lifecycle results show a significant reduction in the carbon footprint of an ecoboard when using Entropy Super Sap bio- epoxy resin and a reduction in carcinogenic chemicals emitted during the glassing phase when using epoxy-based resins. Finally, during its lifecycle, an ecoboard weighs 30 lbs less of CO2 on the environment compared to a standard board (103 lbs).
The impact on the industry is even more inspiring: since the release of the TimberTeK surfboard, the company gained a lot of support from consumers. (This surfboard still represents 30% of the company’s sales.)
Furthermore, FireWire noticed that buyers are accepting higher prices for ecoboards. The public seems to acknowledge that these types of boards are obviously more sustainable, but also more durable and of higher quality.
The message to the industry is clear: consumers are more and more concerned about environmental issues and demand a radical change in the business model.
Lastly, it is impossible not to mention the support coming from pro surfers.
In 2016 the company was acquired by Kelly Slater, a professional surfer who won the World Surf League 11 times. FireWire quickly gained respect in the environment and from other pro surfers, such as Stu Kennedy, who started to use FireWire’s boards.
However, in the surfing industry it is impossible to create products that are 100% ecological and biodegradable at this point in time. Nuno Armado, Distribution Chief of FireWire Europe, states that “What we are trying to do is reduce the impact of our products on the environment. One day we hope, and I would be very happy to announce that our boards are 100% ecological and biodegradable. In fact, in our industry there is no company that can make 100% ecological boards, because it is impossible as there are some materials that cannot be replaced by a biodegradable or sustainable one.” That is why they still have carbon footprint even if they are putting all their effort in to decrease it. Furthermore, he explained to us that what they want to achieve is to have an impact in people’s minds. They want to show other businesses that it is possible to create high quality products that are at least, better for the environment than what they’re selling now. By doing this, he believes that we will start moving towards the path of sustainability, step by step.
The impact of innovation in this company has been everything. Without innovation in surfboards, the company would not be what it is and probably would not exist.
The main idea of the company was to create ecological surfboards. Today they are doing this by providing the necessary sales to survive, grow as a company, generate more jobs, and get closer and closer to the goal of producing 100% ecological surfboards.
At the same time, this innovation that they are pursuing in such a marked way has contributed to the company's employee policies on climate change. For example, the company has internal rules such as the prohibition of plastic bottles in their offices.
The main impact FireWire has had with its innovation has been to make the competition realize what they are doing wrong. The company has been number 1 in sales in its sector while also making the competition see how important ecology really is. Not only to fight for a more sustainable environment, but because it is an aspect people are giving more and more importance to and conditions more and more people's purchases. This impact, as they tell us from the company, is clearly noticeable in competing companies. Many of them have begun to use the same resin as FireWire in the production of their boards for example. Now they are able to say that they are producing ecological and biodegradable boards that do not harm the environment as well.
At the same time, the company has made its consumers see that ecological and biodegradable does not imply a reduction in the quality of the product. The boards made by FireWire are actually some of the best that can be found on the market.
Even though Nuno Amado states that “we would lie if we said that we don’t have carbon footprint at all and that our production has 0 impact on the environment”, though their reduction in their carbon footprint is really considerable. Since 2014, “all FireWire stock boards have met the standard for Sustainable Surf’s Ecoboard certification”. By using these certified ecoboards, they produce 30% less CO2 than traditional surfboards.
Other than surfboards, they have started selling other products such as grips and leashes. “We have been the first company that have created grips out of algae, compared to normal grips, that are produced wit eba (plastic)”. These are 80% more sustainable. They have also come sup with a solution to reduce the EPS waste that they create. “We dump it into a big green machine that heats up and densifies the EPS dust into a hot material that we mold into paving stones like you see at Surf Ranch” (you can see it in this video https://youtu.be/DUoaKPhTM00).
As you can see, there are plenty of things that this business does to help the environment! As Nuno Amado says, they hope to be 100% sustainable one day, and even if they aren’t right now, they are having a huge positive impact compared to normal surfing businesses. So in conclusion, we can say that they are helping to achieve mainly the Climate action SDG, by reducing their carbon footprint, recycling plastic, creating eco products, and reducing their waste… which all contributes to less contamination in the future.
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Nuno Amado, Jefe de Distribuición de Firewire Europa
The company FireWire is dedicated to the manufacturing of surfboards and surf material, polluting less than its competitors, and making surfboards more resistant. Their idea is to create surfboards that you can use for many more years than normal surfboards, and that are not made of polluting materials. In addition, the company also gives great importance to the carbon footprint it leaves during its production.