What is 42 surfboards doing for the environment?

42 surfboards, both our offices and our shop, is powered by wind.

42 Surfboards is a member of 1% for the Planet , The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, as well as The Surfrider Foundation. We are also a supporter of The Hood River Waterfront Park. In 2007, each of these groups received almost 2% of our sales through One Percent For The Planet's donation program.

42 Surfboards are the most durable surfboards we know how to build.

We use the most environmentally-friendly materials we can find.

We use sustainably harvested wood and abalone. In the next couple years, most of our wood will come from trees blown down on the Oregon coast in the December 2007 storm.

All of our waste sawdust is composted and turned back into soil at a local nursery.

At 42 Surfboards the environment comes first. It is our whole reason for being.

It just doesn’t matter how groovy your van is or how bushy your beard is, if you are going through boards as fast as some of our friends are going through their sticks of foam, you’re just not walking the walk. At 42 Surfboards we are building boards that you will be able to pass on to your grandchildren. If you’re ready to give them up at that point.

42 Surfboards are hand-shaped from blanks that we build ourselves. Our blanks are as organic as they come and at 42, your surfboard blank isn’t going to kill anyone. Our blanks are built from sustainably harvested wood for a remarkably beautiful and strong surfboard that, with a little love and a little luck, will last you the rest of your life.

At 42 Surfboards, disposable boards just aren’t going to cut it anymore. Nor are toxic boards made from the same old poisonous soup that has been used since the early '60s. By hand-shaping local wood into beautiful high performance surfboards, our goal is to change the very paradigm of choosing a surfboard. Instead of choosing the quick and easy, the cheap and sleazy, the pop-out molded spray-painted cookie cutter foam toy, we want you to think a little. Think about the long-term cost. The environmental cost. The aesthetic cost. The social cost. And then go with the choice that is simply better by nature.

Surfboards haven’t always been our toxic little plastic toys. The historical time line of surfboard materials goes something like this: 4000 years BC - 1959, wood, wood wood wood wood wood wood. 1959 - 2006, foam. 2007 and onward, wood. We hope that you agree with what we are trying to do and that your own quiver will eventually look like the historical timeline: wood wood wood wood.

Life is short. You are good. Ride a board that makes you proud.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Lars Bergström and the 42 Crew
42 surfboards