Jake Burton Started
the company in 1977 with just a simple concept and design called the “Backhill”.
Although he was only working out of his garage, it would later result in contributing
the explosion and popularity of the sport. It would take only a few years for
Burton’s boards to really catch on in the 80’s as well as the popularity of the
sport which had only been around for 15 years. Burton now is a prominent figure
in the snow sport industry.
Since the sport has not been around
as long as say skiing, each year people were thinking and creating new and
innovating designs and equipment to essentially improve how people participate
in this modern snow sport. From the tour we were able to see what years of
dedication to improving the snowboarding experience had birthed. Burton has a
multitude of equipment used to produce high quality bindings, lenses, boards, etc.
The 3D printer and SLS machine
provided us with an opportunity to see if whether or not Burton as a company was
sustainable. These machines are what set Burton apart from other companies
because of their drive to test and produce the best quality equipment. However
when brought up the only thing we found that Burton implements when thinking
towards sustainability was their reuse of materials in the SLS and 3D printer.
When looking at Burton’s website on suitability,
we were pretty impressed with some of their policies as well as their overall attitude
towards the topic. Some of their policies that we liked were the use of
recycled materials in their equipment, snowboards, etc. They also formed the Green Mountain Project with Mountain Dew to make apparel and
outwear with less of an impact on the environment.
While we were impressed with Burton’s
sustainability page, we had set out to find whether or not Burton really was
green or “green washing”, a term used for companies or people who claim to be
green but in actuality they are not. In this case we found that Burton had
elements of both green and green washed policies.
As stated above Burton has many green
policies which are impressive, but policies like the bike barn and the green
kitchen came off as a little odd to us. What we found that it wasn't like they
were lying, but was simply a case of not enough of the employees being
environmentally aware as well as taking that needed action to making a
difference. Like a lot of environmental issues happening today, the most
prominent set back in trying to maintain our world is the lack of action and
awareness to change our policies and methods.
We made it very clear in our poster
about how we viewed Burton’s Sustainability program. We found that Burton as a
company has the right idea about how to transition themselves over to a company
with less of an impact on the earth, but need to execute these ideas and
execute them well. I personally couldn't have had more fun on this project. We
all did our part to find out what it was we needed to set out and do and then
got right to work with the poster. Although it did take a while to get the tour
we were able to create a visually appealing poster in which my group member’s
feedback was extremely useful in helping me design it. Overall I was very happy
with our groups findings and as well as the topic as a whole.
Works Cited
"Burton Snowboards | History." Burton Snowboards. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. <http://www.burton.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Burton_US-Site/default/Company-History>.
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