Starboard aiming to lead the way with a newly-Olympic sustainability mission

World Sailing 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award 2020
Finalist: Starboard (THA)
Vote now

Already a familiar name to those tuned in to the world of windsurfing, the spotlight was well and truly shone on Starboard last year, when their iQFOiL was selected as the official Men’s and Women’s Windsurfer Equipment for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
 
But those not well-acquainted with the company’s journey may be happy to hear the extent to which sustainability is rooted into their core and promoted across their entire culture, as they apply a range of environmental measures to the entire manufacturing process of their boards.
 
Taking every opportunity to reduce carbon emissions, Starboard also compensate for any unavoidable carbon emissions by planting mangrove trees to absorb these emissions 10 times over for every single board. For example, for each iQFOiL board, ten mangrove trees are planted, making each board 100 x climate positive. Each mangrove tree absorbs one tonne of CO2 in its first 20 years of life and brings numerous benefits to the biodiversity of the area in which it is planted.
 
Starboard’s Plastic Offset Program allows them to reclaim 1.1kg of plastic for every board produced, while their board bags are all made from recycled PET bottles, limiting the use of virgin plastic materials. They have eliminated single use plastic in their production process and use recycled plastic as much as they possibly can.
 
Starboard also run an emerging nations ambassador programme in which they provide those involved with windsurfing gear, selecting participating sailors based on their environmental work and promotion of windsurfing as well as their racing progress.
 
Offering full transparency and accountability by publicly sharing details of their yearly carbon footprint, ensuring sustainability is embedded into teaching and coaching frameworks, and with ambitions to make their boards fully recyclable at the end of their lifespan, Starboard are consistently aiming to raise awareness of sustainability in sailing, and take appropriate action wherever possible.
 
Starboard are finalists for this year’s World Sailing 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award. The Award celebrates the effective execution or ongoing delivery of high-impact, highly-replicable sustainability initiatives, aligned to World Sailing’s Sustainability Agenda 2030. A prize of $10,000 USD is up for grabs to assist the winner in funding future sustainability initiatives.
 
For the first time in the Award’s history, the public will be invited to vote for their favourite initiative. Click here to vote for Starboard. Voting closes 4 December.