Can Green Beget Green?

Business

Eco-friendly companies want to make money, too. It looks like we’re at the turning point.

MICHAEL BREAM, founder and CEO of San Marcos–based Gravity Skateboards, knows just because his company sells a skateboard, it doesn’t mean the clouds will be puffier that day. Sure, skateboarding gets a green card in the area of clean transportation, but it takes a lot more than that to positively impact the Earth. He hopes his company is being an environmental steward by using as many sustainable and recycled materials as possible. He is part of a growing cadre of local “green” business owners not only trying to shield the environment but also influencing the way consumers think and buy.

Bream is the first to concede Gravity is not 100 percent green; no company can be, he says. Gravity uses sustainable materials in about 30 percent of its line of 32 skateboard models. Under the moniker Happy Green Feet, the company has products like Earth-Fibe, natural fiberglass made from 100 percent natural jute and hemp fibers; Eco-Tech, another Earth-friendly fiber glass; Enviro-Grip, grip tape made from recycled glass bottles fastened to Gravity boards with nontoxic, water-based urethane; and V-lam, a new technology that turns Gravity’s birch scraps into resilient and cool-looking skateboards. Gravity also uses water- based silk screen graphics for some of its boards, as well as water-based paints.

But let’s be realistic——there’s no way, he says, his company would make any money if it just sold boards made with sustainable materials. Passion before profits sometimes gets the best of Bream, who says making green boards is more expensive and time-consuming than manufacturing those made with traditional materials.

“I can tell you it’s a nightmare,” the 37-year-old concedes. “I’ve been going back and forth with one manufacturer who keeps messing up one board deck. It takes a lot more time and money to get these boards developed than it would just chopping down a tree.”

He mentions another green skateboard he’s been working on for about a year and a half that was already supposed to be shipped. “We can’t get it made correctly. I just keep shelling out money to make this product,” says Bream. He’s currently working on several prototype boards, including one made from recycled coffee-bean bags he got from a roaster on the East Coast.

Despite burning a hole in his budget, Bream is dead set on further fueling his environmental line.

“We hope the money we spend now is recovered in the long run,” he says. “Our goal is to stay in business so we can continue to help ‘green up’ the Earth. Apple spent $150 million to develop the iPhone, but nobody in that company can tell you when they’ll make that money back. I’d like to make my money back tomorrow, but I’m not going to.”

In the end, will it be worth it? To Bream, it’s not a matter of being worth it. He just believes——as a business owner, consumer and citizen——that making and selling eco-friendly products is the right thing to do.

“If you’re not doing it, then you’re doing something wrong,” he says.

Good thing Gravity’s other lines of popular skateboards are selling. Bream says the privately held company, which has 20 employees and did about $2 million in sales last year, will continue to make traditional boards to keep revenues up. After all, he says, cash is the blood of all business.

“I can have the best environmental ideas in the world, but if I don’t have the cash to make them, then it’s not going to do any good,” says Bream, who launched Gravity in 1994. “There has to be balance with the products and the materials you use.”

Boards made with traditional materials, including flashy colorful graphics, sell better today because they are considered cool and hip by the skateboarding crowd. But that will slowly change, Bream says, as the industry and skateboarders become more educated on the importance of making and buying environment-friendly products.

“If you give people something that looks a little different and is made with recycled materials, you might spark interest in them to be more involved,” says Bream, a UC San Diego computer science grad who grew up in Escondido and now lives in Cardiff. “I just want consumers to ask questions. Ultimately, as a company we get directed where our consumers want us to go.”

UNTIL NOW, being green has been about sacrifice for environmentally conscious consumers. So says John Stein, founder and CEO of Kirei USA, which designs and sells sustainable woods and materials for the building and interior design industries. His company, Kirei——taken from a Japanese word that means “clean” and “beautiful”——creates interesting and attractive design materials that just happen to be green.

Kirei markets its products as “organic contemporary” or “Zen modern.” The company’s three main products include Kirei Board, a panel material manufactured from reclaimed sorghum straw (a cereal grain); Kirei Bamboo, an eco-friendly panel material made from the rapidly renewable trunks of the fast-growing Moso species of bamboo; and Kirei Wheatboard, a formaldehyde-free pressed board that subs for medium-density fiberboard. The company has expanded its line of eco-friendly interior millwork products, introducing bamboo plywood, which is used in cabinetry and other millwork.

“These materials take waste straw from landfills and also keep it from being burned off by farmers,” Stein says. “Our bamboo grows so fast that it helps ease pressure to clear-cut forests.”

Kirei also builds and sells a furniture line called Organo that uses nontoxic materials and finishes.

“We want eco-friendly furniture to be fun and hip,” Stein says, adding that Kirei introduced green manufacturing in Tijuana with the opening of its Organo plant two years ago.

The 37-year-old Stein, who launched Kirei about five years ago, operates his five-person company from a downtown San Diego office, as well as a home office in Cardiff. After doing lots of research and attending many trade shows, he realized that there was a huge market and desire for sustainable building and interior design materials.

As an importer and distributor throughout North America and Europe, Kirei has racked up an impressive list of clients, including Whole Foods Market, REI, Nokia, Macy’s and the Trump Hotel, as well as several restaurants and retail stores. Stein says such companies are helping pave the “green” path for others to follow. Kirei materials may be more expensive, but the company’s clients obviously don’t mind paying more, Stein says, because the quality is so high.

“A lot of people don’t want to be the first to use these kinds of materials; they want to be the second,” says Stein as he sits on the front porch of his Cardiff beach house with his bare feet propped on a small coffee table. “Some companies have been willing to be pioneers by using our materials. Green has become cool, which drives the market. . . . Our products are finally reaching maturity in the market.”

Green building has certainly taken off. Eric Fagan, Kirei’s 33-year-old sales manager, remembers during a U.S. Green Building Show last year that Bill Clinton dubbed the green building industry one of the biggest economic opportunities since World War II.

“Eventually, you will become a minority if you don’t use green products or materials,” Fagan says.

Obviously, lots of companies already are participating: The U.S. green building materials market is expected to reach $27.9 billion by 2011, according to BCC Research, a Massachusetts-based market research firm.

Stein, an avid surfer, grins at the possibilities of the green business movement enhancing his professional life as well as his off-the-clock pursuits. “If we can capture a small percentage of that market, we’ll all have new surfboards,” he says.

As if running a company weren’t enough, Stein launched a Green Drinks offshoot for San Diego (greendrinks.org), an informal networking group that has monthly events for like-minded eco-entrepreneurs. He is a member as well of another local group called the San Diego Green Business Network (greenbusinesssd.org).

San Diego–based “green” companies can also be found in the San Diego Natural Guide (sandiegonaturalguide.com).

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