Creating Responsibly is the Only Way to Create

As ocean lovers, we are stewards of the planet.

It's our duty to make choices that allow us to preserve our playground. At iaera surf, we take this responsibility to the environment seriously.

While being a small business and a growing brand can present limitations to the resources available to us, we innovate with the resources we have and play to our advantages of being "small" and nimble when making the best choices for the environment. 

Here are some of the choices we've made to be as eco-conscious and socially responsible in everything we do as a business:

Material Choices:

Choosing the best materials allows us to reduce our impact on the environment. Some of the materials we have chosen for our collections include: 

Dead stock Fabric: By being a smaller brand (as opposed to corporate giants like Billabong & Roxy) We are able to create capsule collections that include limited styles. By using dead stock fabric, we are giving new life to textiles that were once bound for the landfill!

Fabric made from recycled plastics: We are so proud to use materials created from recycled plastics with fiber by REPREVE® To learn more about REPREVE® and how they repurpose plastic bottles for fabric, you can visit their site here: https://repreve.com/

Eco Prints:  Our collections feature prints that require less water, less dye and less energy to create!

We intentionally source with suppliers that can offer the most eco-conscious solutions and stay up to date with the most innovative solutions.

Manufacturing Locally in San Diego, CA

• By not manufacturing overseas, we limit the carbon footprint of transporting our sewn goods for packing, storing & shipping.
• Local manufacturing allows us to communicate and work closely with our cutting and sewing house to prevent bad inventory. We are also able to do more sampling, in person, which leads to higher quality products. It also cuts down on shipping samples back and forth. 
• We create small batch production to reduce the waste of unsold inventory. We also include our community to test garments and get feedback so that we know we are producing quality inventory.
• Local manufacturing allows us to verify that our goods are being ethically cut and sewn in a safe environment for workers making a legal wage
• Local manufacturing contributes to our local economy 

Design Process

• We design out waste from our processes by doing extra sampling and extra testing. This allows us to make sure we don't waste materials on ill fitting or ill functioning garments.
• We repurpose cut fabric and materials instead of throwing them away
• We keep our product line manageable and don't expand before we are confident that we have created the best products possible 

Eco- Conscious and Recycled Packaging

• We don't use plastics when packing our collection. We've done our best to design out the use of unnecessary plastics. Our hang tags are attached by a gold para chord (our favorite color) meant to be reused for your surfboard. We also ship in compostable and recyclable mailers.
• We don't print packing slips and do as much paperwork electronically.
• We offer to our retailers to receive their inventory, not individually packed, to reduce the amount of waste in sending our inventory. Many of our retailers prefer this.

Responsible Claims

In this era when being kind to mother earth is crucial, it's easy for companies to overstate the "sustainability" or "eco-friendliness" when marketing their brands. 

It is so important to us, here at iaera surf, that we are direct and transparent about the choices we make. We are careful to not make broad claims that can mislead customers. For us, "sustainability" means that any resources that have been used can be brought back to it's original form time and time again. For us "Eco- Friendly" implies that something positively helps the environment.

At this moment in time, there is no sustainable solution for creating swimwear or surf wear. At least to the standard that we hold the word "Sustainable"to. There is no swimwear or surf wear that gives back to the environment in the way we define the term eco-friendly. Therefore, we feel that using these terms can lead to what's called Greenwashing. Greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company's products are more environmentally sound. Greenwashing is considered an unsubstantiated claim to deceive consumers into believing that a company's products are environmentally friendly.

Because of this, we choose the word "Eco Conscious" to describe our collections. Meaning, we make the best decisions possible in every step of our business; in the better interest of our environment, with every resource we have. 

• We will never misrepresent our brand as "sustainable" simply because it is a selling buzzword. There is currently no such solution for completely sustainable swimwear.
• It is important to our values that we are as clear and as transparent as possible and will NEVER manipulate the information to our advantage. We think it's important that you are just as curious as we are, when it comes to the environment and the products you use in your life. We feel that "greenwashing" is to the detriment of the health of our environment.

TOWARD A MORE PERFECT SOLUTION

We are committed to incorporating the most eco-conscious and socially responsible decisions as possible as we evolve as a brand. We are committed to making the most informed decisions and asking questions of our suppliers when it comes ethics & environment.

While there is yet to be a perfect solution, we must do everything we can to be as responsible as possible. By supporting the use of responsible materials and ethical manufacturing, we support the innovation toward a more perfect solution.