Reporting

Partners 

As an established but ever-evolving business, Timpone Hawaii currently works with two non-profit organizations to align business goals with broader goals. Timpone’s partners ensure that Timpone Hawaii remains more than just a business. By providing standards to meet as well as opportunities to help our community, our partners enable us to support global and local issues we believe in while we work to make the best boards we can. 

Sustainable Surf Organization 

SSO provides the only third-party sustainability verification in the surfboard industry. SSO ensures that board builders follow through on claims of using sustainably sourced materials. Through SSO’s Ecoboard Project, Timpone Hawaii’s efforts to reduce the environmental impact of board building through the Maui Leaf Lite line are validated. Timpone is one of a handful of board manufacturers in Hawaii that are Ecoboard verified. Within the Ecoboard project, Timpone is the only board manufacturer in Hawaii to be Gold Level certified. (Link to learn more!) 

1% for the Planet 

Through 1% for the Planet, Timpone Hawaii supports local environmental and social movements. This organization represents a global network of like-minded businesses and individuals who want to empower local, community-oriented organizations to succeed. Timpone is committed to donating 1% of our annual sales to a local non-profit. Supporting causes that make a positive impact within our island community is something Timpone Hawaii is passionate about. (link to learn more) 

Materials 

The best surfboards start with the best materials. Timpone Hawaii fosters working relationships with suppliers for that exact reason. As a builder of premium surfboards, we rely on suppliers to provide materials of a consistently high caliber. 

Fiberglass Hawaii, our primary on-island supplier, is one of the longest-standing suppliers in the industry. Fiberglass Hawaii carries everything we need to build traditional surfboards and other personal watercraft. To facilitate our shaping, Fiberglass Hawaii even fulfills requests for unusual, custom-requested items. 

The Maui Leaf Lite line relies on alternative materials and technologies as Timpone works to stay at the vanguard of sustainable board building. Many materials are so new that they aren’t being sent to our usual suppliers; therefore, we source much of the recycled and renewable Maui Leaf Lite materials directly through producers. 

Blanks 

USBlanks provides both Polyurethane and Polystyrene (EPS) blanks to fulfil any request. 

Markofoam provides partially recycled EPS that is used on request. The majority of our Maui Leaf Lite boards feature Markofoam’s recycled EPS blanks. 

Resins 

Fiberglass Hawaii manufactures and supplies polyester resin, which is a staple in building surfboards and other types of watercraft. 

Entropy Resins provides several high-quality formulations of epoxy. Entropy’s epoxy is bio-based, so it unites the strength and durability of traditional resin while representing a sustainable alternative to traditional resins. 

Reinforcements 

Colan Australia provides unique fiber options, many of which are more environmentally friendly than fiberglass. Colan supplies flax linen as well as custom hemp/basalt unidirectional tape to renewably reinforce our surfboards. 

Envirotextiles provides us with premium hemp linen, which is another excellent fiberglass-cloth alternative. 

Metrics and transparency 

It is our goal to establish and maintain accountability and transparency with regard to our business practices. We have always encouraged customer interaction as it is a vital part of building the best surfboards we can. We are an open book in that sense, customers who come to order boards get a first-hand experience of our process and facility. We value these interactions as not only a way to share our craft, but also to educate customers of all the aspects of board-building. It is our hope that these internal views allow the customer to make better more informed decisions when it comes to ordering or purchasing surfboards. In efforts to demystify parts of the Surfboard industry, we are voluntarily addressing quantitative and qualitative information that rarely get discussed in surfing.  

Labeling

Labeling our surfboards is one of the best ways to create a better-informed customer. On every surfboard we build, customers will find the “Made on Maui” laminate indicating the authenticity of our product being constructed here on Maui. We have extended our labeling to indicate materials used on our Maui Leaf Lite surfboards. This way, anyone who sees one of these boards will exactly what it is made on and be able to gage its material performance.    

Production 

How many surfboards are made world-wide each year? We feel too many. Over production comes with a range of problems including market saturation, devalued products, unsustainable projections, and unnecessary waste creation. Building surfboards on a custom basis allows us to be very conscious of our production habits. This eliminates the negative aspects of over production, and maintains our products’ value. In 2017 we built 160 surfboards, that all went into customers’ hands and didn’t end up on a sale rack, ready to be marked down in price. We equate this to a sustainable yield, producing only want the market requires which minimizes negative impacts listed above.     

Waste

One of the dirtiest parts of the surfboard industry, and one that is difficult solve completely. While there are a number of measures to reduce some of the waste created from surfboard production, it is important to note that not all of this waste can be diverted. There are currently companies that are working to find better solutions for surfboard waste, and the future looks bright for recycling and reuse of materials especially. It is difficult to manage what cannot be measured, so that is why we started separating and measuring the waste our facility creates at the end of 2016. This is an on-going effort to find strategies that will reduce and hopefully eliminate portions of our waste stream in the near future. 

2017 Waste 

Shaping: Bones, Dust, etc. – 575.1lbs. 

Laminating/Sanding: Fiberglass, Tape, Sanding-paper, Dust, Stir-sticks, squeegees, etc.  – 471.3 lbs. 

Laminating Floor: Resin saturated Cardboard/Butchers paper – 463.2 lbs. 

Used 5 gal. Drums: Excess Resin and Used Acetone – 657.8 lbs. 

Total: 3288.2 lbs.