Research will tell you that to solve the Climate Crisis the two biggest emitters of carbon are the production of energy and transport need to be fully addressed. Everything else, for now is just playing around the edges of the problem that lays ahead of us.
Society needs to move to the use of renewable energy and to fully electric vehicles as soon as possible. To hasten the uptake of these technologies Global Surf Industries is launching a fund as part of an environmental initiative. We see this as a much better option than buying carbon offsets or credits. The aim is to help the normalisation by society of renewable energy and the increase the uptake of fully electric vehicles as a vital part in the migration away from fossil fuel energy production and powered vehicles.
From Jan 1st 2022 we will be imposing a carbon levy on each surfboard and SUP we manufacture. Our research is telling us that making a surfboard creates about 45kg of carbon emissions and a SUP about double that, so 90kg. With a general rule of thumb for transportation from manufacturing point to end user. We will round it out at 50kg and 100kg. The price of carbon per tonne varies around the world. For 2022 we are setting our price at A$40 per tonne. Which will mean that the levy will be A$2.00 for surfboards and A$4.00 for SUPs.
This levy will be added to the price of all boards come Jan 1st 2022. On that date GSI will calculate the inventory on hand globally and establish the fund with the value of the goods on hand multiplied by the levy. We will add to the fund as each manufactured shipment arrives.
The initiative will then fund projects on a 1:1 to 1:4 basis, this will depend on the project scale and the specifics of the project. The Initiative will exclusively look to help fund purchases of solar power, battery storage and electric vehicles.
GSI Staff, GSI Vendors, GSI customers: Distributors, Retailers and Surf Schools will be invited to apply for funding from the initiative.
It is forecast that the fund could enable up to A$250,000 worth of projects in the first year.
Global Surf Industries accepts that Climate Action is needed to help undo the damage done to the environment. We aim to do our part to help not only mitigate that damage but to hopefully get to a point where mankind is adopting better ways of living on this planet.
