About Us
Shaping Boards, Shaping Lives.
Our Story
The Potter's Boards began as a dream in Rio De Janiero, Brasil, while hanging out with some youth trying to track down surfboards for them to take out. We drove around, stopping at several houses trying to find one to use, finally we tracked down a dinged up old board, and headed to a local break to watch a competition and relax before going out surfing. Seeing these youth work so hard to track down a board to share for the day inspired the vision of The Potter's Boards: to help youth in surf communities to get their own board to surf whenever they want, and to make a positive difference in their lives along the way. As years went by and the vision of TPB developed with the primary goal of shaping lives of youth through teaching them to shape their own surfboard, using surfshops as a developmental and economic generation tool. The Potter's Boards first began operating on Vancouver Island, Canada, then to Washington, USA, and currently has HQ on Oahu, Hawaii and maintains offices in the PNW.People and Planet.
We care about people and our planet. That's why we are:
Reducing waste
Reducing carbon emissions
Supporting local communities
Partnering with Fair Trade, Fair Labour Companies
Ecoboard Certified
Surfboard Production
Our surfboards are the heart of who we are and the primary vehicle we use to show people their purpose and value.
That's why we seek to make our boards with the highest possible standards. We are constantly seeking new, innovative, and earth-and-people positive ways to make surfboards. Our handshaped boards are certified Ecoboards by Sustainable Surf. While we offer special-order surfboard construction, we recommend our stock eco-friendly options for custom orders.
We make most of our boards from recycled EPS foam, plant based bio resins, and domestically sourced fiberglass cloth (which often comes from recycled waste). We also utilize other eco-alternatives to common materials, such as using cork, woods, hemp, and other plant based materials, and are always looking for new and innovative ways to make better boards for people and planet.
Sustainable and Ethical
We are offering are growing collection of environmentally sustainable products including organic, recycled and local products. All of our apparel is certified by the FLA, WRAP (through their respective manufacturers), or equivalent bodies, ensuring compliance to ethical production. We also vet our partners to the best of our ability to ensure adequate compliance.
Partnering with Locals
We seek to partner with locals and local small businesses to support local economies and reduce the distance items need to travel to get to the customers. This means making strategic partnership with businesses around the world.
As we grow we plan to do work with communities in new countrie. We seek to help promote and implement sustainable and ethical businesses in communities that want to support their own and help build strong local economies.
Merch and Other Products
In traditional made-to-sell retail stores, products are made in large quantities and often exceed market demand. Around 85% of all textiles produced by the fashion industry end up in landfills, making it a major contributor to environmental damage.
We are seeking to be different by using ethical and sustainable production means including: small-batch, local, made-to-order, thrift, recycling, organic, and upcycling methods, and try to avoid being just another dog in the system.
We hope our methods help make a shift in the way the world does business by demanding higher standards of sustainablilty and ethics in retail and production.
We see the need to constantly better our standards, and plan to continually do so as we grow.
