As you all may well have heard, a second massive earthquake has rocked the Mentawai Islands in a matter of days and the aftershocks continue. SurfAid International has been sending out an announcement to all of their newsletter recipients keeping us up to date and fully aware of the situation as it develops with eye witness accounts from their teams on the ground. Not only is this devastating to the people of the Mentawais but the threat of a Tsunami is very real and is being monitored carefully. SurfAid has published both of the releases on their website at www.surfaidinternational.org, I encourage you to have a look to get the full story on the situation.

I finally go the chance to flip through Surfing Magazine’s 2nd Annual Green Issue and if you haven’t had the chance to check it out you should get one soon before it is replaced. Super inspiring issue, it’s nice to catch a glimpse at what people are doing within the industry and around the world to make a difference. However, in the intro to the issue they tell the story of how the second annual green issue was almost a scraped idea because going green was now old news, every one has been jumping on the band wagon. Going Green had become a fad, time to move on. But then they realized exactly what I had been thinking all along, so what if it has become a fad, isn’t that a good thing. Isn’t the whole point of increasing peoples awareness of the dangers facing our environment to make them jump on the bandwagon and help reduce the damage we are inflicting? So many people are quick to support those who are raising awareness about this topic and that, but then when it becomes common place they label it mainstream or a “fad” and jump ship as quickly as they got on. This isn’t about the latest fashion or how sheik you look reading the latest issue of Organic Gardening while sipping your 100% organic esspresso. It’s a real issue so let it become commonplace.

All while ago I had written a few articles concerning the prospect of taking this company to a new level both socially and environmentally. Since then I have spent a good amount of “spare” time finding out what can be done to go green and steps that other companies are taking to go green. I am impressed at the leaps and bounds that the action sports industries are taking to become leaders in the green movement. I think that this is an idea that has always been prevalent in our industry but it is great to see the attention it is getting. Green practices and products were big news at the recent ASR San Diego show, which I was unfortunately unable to attend, but I can’t wait to hear the buzz it has created.

All that aside, what have we been doing to adapt greener practices? Well I am proud to announce that we have completed the design for the introduction of our first green product and can’t wait to unveil it. I have also begun making the transition to greener products in areas such as our marketing materials by using recycled papers and utilizing the number of environmentally efficient printing companies in the industry. And of course I still try to stay conscious of everyday operation and continue to concentrate on the 10 Simple Steps I outlined earlier in the year. It may be a small contribution to the green movement as a whole but as they say “every little bit counts”. I for one can’t wait to see how far we can take this.