Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/11544
LOCALFEATURE Hobie Continues Breaking Ground with Green Room Hobie Sport's Mark Christy on the surf store's continuing commitment to the environment. By: CHRIS ALLSOP M ark Christy, owner of Laguna Beach-based Hobie Sports, attended a college where one fraternity had a cruel, unusual, and environmentally friendly way of hazing its new pledges. "They made you wear a hemp shirt every day for a week," says Christy. "The thing would itch like crazy - it was like hemp-boarding." And for a long time, that was part of the problem with the early efforts at environmentally friendly clothing – it was designed by the CIA to extract confessions. Today however, as you'll discover in Hobie Sport's ASEC (Action Sports Environmental Coalition) Green Room (the first of its kind), the discomfort issue that's always been attached to organic clothing has been solved. And the style? "It's like organic tomatoes were a few years back," says Christy, "where you were buying tomatoes for 69c a pound or paying four bucks for the ugly organic ones. But that's completely changed now - the organic apparel that is coming out is some of the coolest and softest stuff out there." While organic and sustainable hard goods, for the most part, have made the transition to products saleable to a mass market, soft goods (such as apparel) have only recently made up the same ground. You'll find a marriage of both in the ASEC Green Room, a section of Hobie's Forest Avenue store, and the entire Hobie shop on Del Mar in San Clemente, dedicated to environmentally sustainable products, with bamboo skateboards lining the walls beneath silky bamboo t-shirts piled on shelves made of compressed cow manure. "It's a trip," says Christy about the manure shelves, "but it does show you the possibilities." When Hobie opened the Green Room last year (host to brands such as Patagonia, Arbor, Livity and Hippy Tree, among others) it remained a financial gamble based on the supposition that the momentum of environmental awareness would see consumers pay that little bit extra for a product made from sustainable material. Christy, however, believed that another step had to be made, in order to "walk the walk as well as talk the talk". With Hobie Sports already supporting a number of local and environmental charities, Christy felt that something more had to be done for the environmental agenda. The next action involved the La Sirena Grill, in which Christy is an investor, along with his partners, Scott & Janet Cortellessa. Their decision: to entirely convert to all menu items and even the cutlery and packaging to exclusively sustainable and organic. "It pretty much hammered the bottom line," says Christy. "With profits being trimmed due to dramatically increased costs, but we're hanging with it and, hopefully, leading by example because it is the right thing to do." He also drives, by example, a potentially lethal, but kind on the planet, Toyota Prius. Thankfully, following its opening, Christy and his team were pleased to discover that the Green Room increased the sales per square foot in the stores, proving that not only was it the right thing to do, but also was economically viable. He shares his figures openly with other surf retailers to encourage them to do the same thing. "After speaking with us, a 4,000 square foot store in San Diego made a complete conversion, saying that if it comes in the doors then it has to be sustainable," he says. "And, in San Clemente, our two stores have followed suit, the smaller of the two going completely organic and sustainable." Besides his own position on the issue, Christy adds that part of the inspiration for Hobie's commitment to selling sustainable goods has to be attributed to Yvon Chouinard, the CEO of outdoor clothing brand, Patagonia (founder of 'One Percent for the Planet' - an alliance of businesses that donate at least 1% of their annual revenues to environmental organizations worldwide). "It began with "Patagonia", the lone warrior out there 30 years ago," says Christy. "Chouinard is living it. Patagonia is a massive company, and he lives in a shack on the beach in Ventura. He's a compelling person and his arguments are undeniable - we can't keep living this way. People are getting it all over the world. We're a little slower here, but we're very good consumers and we like our plastic! But Chouinard's approach has got other people looking at his model and saying, 'Let's go there'." For the surfing industry, becoming environmentally friendly has been a slow process that's picked up steam over the past couple of years. A good example is Billabong, the surf apparel giant, which is making the commitment to transfer its entire t-shirt line over to being completely comprised of organic products within the next year. "We applaud that," says Christy, "and we're stoked to see more and more of the manufacturers going for it. Some are hesitant, dabbling to show they're doing the right thing. But I think those are the ones that are publicly trading and have to answer to their shareholders and watch their bottom line." For Christy however, these actions are just the beginning, with the next step being the completion of a new store in Dana Point designed to green standards. "We're converting a former post office into a retail store, busy jack hammering out vaults and things," he explains. "During the day we should be able to shut off the lights entirely, thanks to the 28 Solatube skylights and picture windows providing natural light everywhere." Besides the "way-cool, converted warehouse vibe" to the new store, Christy is also going to plant a surfboard-shaping bay near the front door. "It'll be like when you see a woman flipping tortillas in a Mexican food joint, you know it's the real deal," he says. "I'm very excited to turn the general public onto the shaping process." Currently, clothes made out of organic and sustainable materials remain a little more expensive than the synthetic clothing on sale. Christy hopes, however, that as the industry evolves and brands continue to migrate over to selling more green products, it will mean "the demand and production for those materials will allow retailers to match the price of the current 'day to-day' stuff. "It's the youth that is making the difference, and with the Green Movement's current economic momentum, support and commitment drawn from such a broad faction of the public - there's no stopping it now." 6 LIVEMAGS.NET JUNE>>10