I'm never all that sure about official honours. What do they mean, who decides, why do they exist? Well, for once, I'm not troubled by any of these questions because whoever made the decision to award SAS co-founder Chris Hines an MBE got it right.
I met Chris (pictured on the left) while researching Surf Nation. He's bright, articulate and committed to making this world a better place. For many years a driving force behind SAS, recently Chris has been devoting his considerable energies via the Eden Project (working as its Sustainability Director) to the Eco Board. Prior to his involvement in the Eco Board, Chris gave evidence to the select committees in the House of Commons
and Lords and was selected as special adviser to the minister for the
environment Micheal Meacher. He's known also for once chasing the UK's
minister of the environment around the House of Commons with an
inflatable turd, and helping to cause South West Water's PR manager to come
close to breakdown by dumping a bag full of condoms and sanitary towels
at his feet during a press conference, with the immortal words: "I think these belong
to you."
Remarkably, Chris was awarded his MBE on his wedding day. "The happiest day of my life just got happier," he said. "It's also a great day for the environment, the oceans and for surfing. I'd like to thank all the people who supported SAS and the staff at Eden."
A fine achievement all round. Honours lists? A good thing. See below for the excerpt from Surf Nation in which I met Chris and check out his website to learn more about what he's up to now.
When he finished working full-time for SAS, Hines took some time out. “I went surfing, relaxed, made a documentary on waste for West Country TV, just bits and pieces, really.” Soon, though, his sense of environmental politics took him to the Eden Project, which opened near St Austell in south-east Cornwall on 17 March, 2001. The brainchild of Dutchman Tim Smit, who previously oversaw the restoration of the nearby Lost Gardens of Heligan, the Eden Project is arguably the most successful of Britain’s millennium projects. Two giant biomes house plants of rainforest, semi-desert, sub-tropical and Mediterranean origin. Set up at a cost of £90m, the well-designed biomes – set in an easily navigable environmental theme park - have helped accrue income, employment and visitors to an area of Cornwall whose china clay mountains appear, unlike its tins mines, to be in rude health. In marked contrast to the disastrous Millennium Dome in London’s Greenwich, now earmarked for gambling, Eden’s biomes have provided nothing but upside, garnering critical acclaim and public acceptance in equal measure.
Hines now works amid the Eden zeitgeist developing his cherished Eco Board. For half a century, surfboards have been made out of polystyrene foam and fibreglass resin, but such manufacture entails toxicity on a large scale. Urethane foam is made using toluene diisocyanate (a poisonous and irritating liquid) and polyether compounds, while fibreglass cloth is often treated with toxic chemicals such as chromium. Breathing fibreglass dust is not only unpleasant but dangerous, while polyester resins, comprised of dicarboxylic acids and dihydroxy alcohols, release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to the atmosphere when they cure. Epoxy resin has been developed by some manufacturers in place of polyester resin, and has lessened some of the above problems. However, the fact is that the creation of a surfboard – which, in its modern form, is one of the most resolutely non-biodegradable products on earth – is, paradoxically given surfing’s image, an act of hostility to the environment. A newer UK pressure group, the EcoSurf Project, sums up the problem thus: “As surfers we get through around three quarters of a million boards a year. Currently only a tiny percentage of these are made from sustainable, biodegradable or even recyclable materials.” Hines, along with three Cornish companies, aims to change all that.
The Eco Board began life with a bang. A huge balsa wood tree fell to earth in Eden’s Humid Tropics biome, and Hines, with colleague Pat Hudson, saw the potential for a surfboard blank, or core, made from wood. The first prototypes were too heavy, but Hines was not deterred. An alliance was formed with three other Cornish companies, Homeblown Surf Blanks and Foam Systems from Redruth, Sustainable Composites Ltd and Hillzee Surfboards. The result – on display at the Rip Curl Boardmasters 2005 – is a board made of a 40% plant-based blank, laminated in hemp cloth and a bio-resin. Tris Cokes, Homeblown’s managing director, is convinced that the Eco Board is the future: “This is one in a series of prototypes but we are moving rapidly and hope to progress the foam and get to market in the near future. We will continue working in pursuit of the ultimate goal - a 100% natural surfboard that can be used by everyone.”
That goal seemed to have moved a step closer following the closure of surfboard manufacturing giant Clark Foam in December 2005. Clark Foam, set up in Laguna Niguel, California in 1961 by Gordon Clark, had cornered as much as 90% of the global surfboard manufacture market for polyester blanks thanks to undercutting the competition and an extraordinary output that saw as many as 1,000 surfboards produced a day. The demise of the company sent shockwaves around the global surfing community but it was no surprise, to environmentalists at least. In a letter to customers explaining the closure, Clark produced a curious blend of mea culpa and self-justification that will have lawyers – probably his own – scratching their heads for many years to come. He explained that he had been increasingly at odds with state and local government owing to his unique, and rather mysterious, production techniques, not to mention the admitted use of toxic and polluting chemicals. But still, in the good old days “it was a far different California. Businesses like Clark Foam were very welcome and considered the leading edge of innovation and technology. Somewhere along the way things have changed.” Clark commended contemporary efforts by the State of California and Orange County California “to make a clean, safe, and just home for their residents,” but bemoaned his previous battles with the authorities over safety issues, one of which had cost some $400,000 in legal fees for a compensatory payment of $17,000. “Our safety record is not good,” he admitted, adding that “We have three ex-employees on full Workman's Compensation disability - evidently for life. There is another claim being made by the widow of an employee who died from cancer. According to the claim, the chemicals or resins at Clark Foam caused the cancer.” The net result of such travails and the translation of increased environmental awareness into a regulatory framework was that Clark Foam was no longer able to do business viably; indeed, as Clark illustrated in his letter, a parallel with communism was apposite:
Some years ago I read that the old communist Russian tractors had a negative economic value. They were so poorly built that the raw material used to build them was worth more than the tractor that would rarely work.
I find that due to this “standards” thing my equipment and process has a negative economic value. Why sell something for a dollar when you are risking a lawsuit that could cost you anywhere from the dollar to everything you own? Since I am the “standard” I am liable for everything that was built to my “standard”. Therefore, I am not going to sell any of this equipment or the process. The liability is far too great. Furthermore, most of the equipment can be dangerous if it is not operated properly.
Clark was not merely jumping ship, he was scuppering it in the act of abandonment. Production would cease immediately, nothing from the business would be sold, and the dream had soured once and for all. “I should have seen this coming many years sooner,” wrote Clark, “and closed years ago in a slower, more predictable manner. I waited far too long, being optimistic rather than realistic. I also failed to do my homework.” He concluded by saying that he anticipated spending a lot of time in court over the next few years, and thanked everyone for their “wonderful support over the years.” After all, it had been “a great ride with great people.”
Clark’s honesty and willingness to write such a letter on the brink of a full-scale federal investigation was laudable, and there is no doubt that for all the problems with his business he was held in high esteem by many in surfing. But even in surfing, the sport of kings and hippies, beats and airheads, wannabes and druggies (depending on which media stereotype you’re reading) the market looks after itself. Where once was Clark Foam, there may soon be the Eco Board.
As Tris Cokes put it, announcing that Homeblown would be opening a new factory in San Diego in early 2006: “I’ve been making boards for 40 years and in that time surfing has become a huge global industry with global environmental and social impacts. When Clark Foam announced their shut down in December last year, we immediately saw the opportunity, and this opening is a great landmark. We are pleased that the chemistry and processes used in Homeblown production comply with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s tough regulations. Our unique delivery system also means highly efficient use of materials and energy and reduced waste streams.”
Hines joined Cokes at the opening of the new factory, where he presented the Eco Board. Prior to their departure, Hines had this to say: “Showing a prototype surfboard to the Californians may seem like taking coals to Newcastle but we believe that the new version of the Eco Board represents a hugely-exciting leap forward for the industry and sport. For manufacturers and surfers to be won over by them, Eco Boards must be as good if not better in terms of performance [than existing designs], and cost competitive. Ultimately we believe all surfboards will be made from sustainable materials sourced from the indigenous plant base.” And by way of reducing surfers’ carbon footprint, Homeblown was also determined to reduce “surfboard miles.” The small Cornish enterprise also opened in South Africa’s Jeffrey’s Bay, with Cokes opining that “It’s a form of madness to transport surfboard blanks half way round the world. Big volume and low weight being transported long distances equals a big negative environmental footprint. By following this policy we reduce the carbon footprint and global warming impact of the sport.”
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