Action Sports and Nature: Why One Depends on the Other

No ocean, no surf. No mountain, no snowboarding. No open land, no golf. The least we can do as brands is be intentional with our business and look after the thing that brings millions of people joy every day.

I've been a fan of nature my whole life, and because of that, almost every decision we make as a company has nature in mind.

Golf has a reputation as nature's enemy, but courses protect a lot of land from development. The bluffs at Torrey Pines and the dunes at Bandon are still open ground because a golf course sits on them. In most towns the course is the biggest green space around, and hundreds of courses are certified wildlife sanctuaries through Audubon International. That land stays open because people play golf on it.

So here's how a shoe company thinks about that. Footwear is a wasteful industry: virgin plastics, high water use, and a landfill at the end of almost every product's life. We can't fix the industry, but we can refuse its defaults. Our midsoles and insoles are recycled performance foam, made from factory scrap that was headed to landfill. Making that foam uses about two grams of water where conventional foam uses around a gallon. The outsole is Vibram Ecostep, 30% recycled rubber. The leather is natural hide, tanned at a gold-rated tannery — a material that's a byproduct of another industry rather than a new demand on the planet.

None of that saves the ocean by itself. It's one product line making less mess than it could. But the math of preservation is just a lot of people and companies choosing less waste and less water, over and over, because they actually love the places they play.

We keep going back outside. That's the whole reason to keep it worth coming back to.

Blumaka midsole and insole, up to 85% recycled performance foam. Vibram Ecostep outsole. Natural leather from Bojos. Designed in Costa Mesa, assembled in the Dominican Republic.