Vermont Business Magazine Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and with it, Burton has announced further progress to a more sustainable snowboard and outdoor industry.
As Burton has grown from Jake Burton Carpenter's garage into a global company over the last four decades, the brand has continued their responsibility to protect the outdoor playground and has announced updates to their aggressive sustainability goals for 2020.
Below is a breakdown on key touch points where Burton has been able to make the most progress so far, including their recent B-Corp certification and continued partnership with bluesign® to ensure Burton textiles meet their industry-leading standards.
Snowboard Construction
- Starting last winter all Burton snowboards are produced without lacquer, which decreases greenhouse gas emissions and significantly reduces the use of nasty chemicals, known as volatile organic compounds.
- In lieu of petroleum, Burton uses Super Sap® resin made with bio-based materials, which reduces its carbon footprint by 33% compared to conventional, petroleum-based resins. Starting this winter, all Burton snowboards will be produced with Super Sap.®
Snowboard Production
- Burton worked with two of their snowboard factories to install rooftop solar arrays that will offset their electricity use – one by 25% and one by 75%. Both of these systems were installed in 2019 and are already well underway in reducing their carbon footprint.
Outerwear & Apparel
- As of 2020, 49% of all Burton softgoods products meets the standards of the bluesign® system.
- The goal for 2020 is to reach 100%, and Burton is making progress: all Spring/Summer outerwear is bluesign® approved, and for the upcoming winter season, 98% of outwear, 94% of first layer, and 79% of backpacks comply.
- Since their partnership began with bluesign®, Burton has been working to extend sustainable guidelines to new categories of products, such as gloves, hats and luggage. Burton is leading the outdoor industry into new opportunities for all of us to clean up our environmental impact.
Burton has also compiled day-to-day sustainability practices for their customers and global audiences to commit to, and individually share what they’re doing to help the environment well beyond Earth Day.
For more information, head to the blog post on Burton.com – https://www.burton.com/blogs/the-burton-blog/what-we-can-all-do-fight-climate-crisis-and-protect-our-playground/
A note from Donna Carpenter, Chair of the Burton Board of Directors
Additionally, Donna Carpenter shared an update surrounding Earth Day and how it fits into the difficult climate we are facing in the wake of the COVID-19.
Today is Earth Day. It’s actually the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which began in 1970 as both a celebration and a warning. It’s a time to celebrate our connection to nature, but also to heed her warnings of environmental degradation and impending devastation.
I know it’s difficult, when you are in the middle of a crisis, to think too far into the future. We are faced with the immediate needs of keeping our families safe and our company viable for the long term. But it’s important to remember, the coronavirus crisis is not the only threat to humanity. There’s long been a consensus among scientists that climate change is manmade and is an existential threat to the planet.
The similarities between what we are facing with this virus and the threat we face from climate change are striking to me:
- Both threats are “invisible”. Just as we can’t see the coronavirus, we can’t see carbon in the air. And it’s hard to mobilize people around something they can’t see.
- Neither came out of nowhere. A pandemic like this was predicted by global health experts. Public health experts saw this as inevitable, just as climate scientists have been saying: it’s not a matter of if, but when.
- Denial of the threat leads to inaction. We are all subject to the laws of nature. Denying the emergency (or, curiously, blaming both on a ‘Chinese hoax’) only leaves us unprepared. One lesson we have learned in this current crisis is that the earlier and the bolder the actions we take, the better.
- Mitigating these threats require global solidarity. There are no borders when it comes to coronavirus or climate change. Our collective fate is in each of our hands.
As you’ve probably heard - the surreal slowdown of social and economic life right now is giving Mother Earth a ‘break’. The decrease in air pollution, and related deaths, has been significant. This is a great research opportunity, but it will not ‘solve’ climate change. We will go back to business as usual some day in the near future.
That being said, how we are handling the current crisis is giving climate activists, including me, hope for the future. Getting people to care about the welfare of others and to take action based on our collective fate, has always been an obstacle for the climate movement. If you had asked me just a few months ago: would the world basically shut down voluntarily in order to save 1-2% of the population? I would have said no.
I am hopeful that we – as a global community and as individuals – will now take climate science more seriously. We’ve learned that denial simply doesn’t work when it comes to the forces of nature. Fortunately, we’ve also learned that we can take action as individuals that have a global impact.
I remember my personal “turning point”, when I went from being concerned about the environment to being a climate activist. It was 7 years ago at a Denver trade show. Jeremy Jones, the rider and visionary behind Protect Our Winters, approached me to see if Burton would join POW. Ali and I had just started our sustainability efforts and I felt it was too soon to start speaking up. I told him we had to “green our own house” first. He responded by saying that I could do all the right things, I could ‘green my house’ all day long, but that still wouldn’t move the needle. What was required was all of us using our voices to demand collective change. Burton joined POW that day, and never looked back, becoming one of their strongest and most vocal supporters.
In a bittersweet way, I am hopeful this pandemic will be everyone’s “turning point”. The process of getting back to ‘normal’ is going to be a slow and difficult one. But I know once we are through it, there will be a pent-up demand to get outdoors and to snowboard. There will also be a pent-up demand for action around climate change.
Source: Burton 4.22.2020