So how did you apply this to surfboards?
I separated all of the main materials which go into surfboard production, and looked at the environmental effects of producing each component. There were five materials which I looked at; foam, resin, fiberglass, surfacing agent, and catalyst (hardener for epoxy). I also included shaping and ding repair. I identified the carbon outputs from each of those components.

Can you talk us through the process of the study?
The first step was identifying how much of each material is used in a typical surfboard. I talked to some shapers, did some measurements, and some calculations to identify this. Once I knew the amount of material, I used a tool called EIO-LCA to figure out the carbon footprint of each. [EIO-LCA stands for "economic input-ouput life cycle assessment," and is a great tool for doing basic environmental assessments -- you can read more about it at eiolca.net.] I also created the Board Lifetime survey, which allowed me to find out how often people ding boards, and what they do with them after disposal.

Did you take into account the waste of foam and the waste of other shaping by-products?
Yes; I estimated how much of each material was used in total, including what was wasted and discarded. I got estimates from shapers on the amount of resin it actually takes to make a board. I also estimated how much was wasted in ding repair; typically more is wasted for repairs than for original construction. This is because while shaping is pretty precise, ding repair is different each time, it's difficult to make it precise. A lot of people are do-it-yourselfers, as well, and you can bet they waste more than professional ding repair guys; I know when I fix my own board, I end up getting resin and fiberglass all over the place, I'm not very good at it.

With the life-cycle of the board, did you ask people what they did after that? Did they sell it or throw it away?
Most people sell their old boards, or dump them in the trash, though quite a few people used them for furniture and other pretty creative stuff. I did take a look at carbon emissions that came from dumping the board into landfill, and they ended up being very small, less than one percent of the effect of board production. The only carbon emissions that actually come from landfilling are when it's trucked to the dump; surfboards are so light, that this doesn't contribute much.

What about actually sitting in the landfill and decomposing?
In a modern landfill in the US, loose chemicals are very well contained. Surfboard materials aren't very toxic, either, compared to some of the stuff that gets thrown away. Throwing away a box of AA batteries would be much worse than a surfboard. Surfboards don't decompose in a landfill, but nothing does. You can dig up landfilled newspapers from 25 years ago and still read them; I'm not kidding.

How many people were responding to your survey?
I ended up with about 250 total responses.

So when you were getting the numbers back, what was surprising to you?
Seeing that epoxy boards lasted noticeably longer -- that was the biggest surprise for me. People like to surf, too, and they're very motivated about the planet. I had a lot of people get in contact with me about this study, wanting to help out.

You were trying to figure out how to make a surfboard more environmentally sound. What kind of conclusions did you come to?
My most important conclusion actually had nothing to do with the components of a surfboard. I found that car emissions, from driving to the waves, are by far the biggest footprint for most surfers. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint from surfing, your best move is to drive less -- live closer to your break -- or to buy a car that's more fuel efficient. Where I live in Berkeley, driving out to surf is a worst-case scenario, over 20 miles each way; I would love to live closer to the beach, but I just can't at this point in my life. My car, however, gets great gas mileage, over 30 MPG on the freeway. It's nothing fancy, it's an older-model Toyota Corolla; but by driving that instead of my last car, which was a Jeep SUV, I save more in carbon than buying all the green surfboards in the world. It's cheaper for me, too. Sometimes it's surprising what's really green.

Can you make comparisons with emissions?
I'll talk again about driving, to put it in better context. Drive your car 100 miles and you've emitted as much carbon as it takes to make a surfboard. Think about that; 100 miles. I drive twice that much in a week, and I don't drive much, compared to a lot of people. Surfboard production just does not have a large carbon footprint, when you compare it to all the other things we do in our lives.

What about getting the resin? That seems like the worst thing, having to use petroleum?
I agree that petroleum dependence is not a good thing. But you have to be careful when you look at the alternatives, because it's not just petroleum that causes pollution; some pretty obviously "green" alternatives might not be any better for the environment. As an example, there are several board companies which swap fiberglass for "natural products," like bamboo cloth. But it takes oil and other resources to make bamboo cloth, too. It has to be grown, and shipped, and milled, and processed, and all this takes oil and other resources. Processing bamboo fiber is not much different than processing fiberglass, in fact. If you look at the full life cycle, these alternatives to fiberglass might not end up being better at all. It's wrong to focus on the petroleum as being an evil item by itself; the "evil" is really the resulting pollution. If we want to help the environment, we should look for alternatives which emit the least pollution. This is what steered me towards investigating driving emissions. I took a step back and tried to find out the best way to reduce the pollution that comes from surfing, rather than trying to find a way to make a "sustainable" surfboard. It's a subtle difference, but a very important one.

Anything you want anyone to know about the process?
As bad as surfboards are and as much as we drive to go surfing, the passion I've seen and the way it activates people to care about the environment is a much bigger net positive than environmental effects of a surfboard. Take "Save Trestles" as an example; would that last piece of coast in Southern California have been saved, if not for surfing? I don't think we would have seen the level of involvement in Save Trestles, if not for the breaks there, and the surfing culture around them. I think that the culture and the environmental awareness surfing fosters is a much bigger plus for the environment than the negatives that come from the pollution that arise from it.