Vans’ ‘Now And Forever’ Shines A Spotlight On Planetary Health

A principle isn’t a principle until it’s cost you something. 

Vans is donating all of the entry fees from The Triple Crown of Surfing towards nonprofit partners that do good work for the Hawaiian community: North Shore Community Land Trust, Na Kama Kai, and Sustainable Coastlines.

In conjunction with their donation, Vans are launching NOW AND FOREVER, an annual series celebrating organisations and initiatives that align with its environmentally-conscious ethos to reduce pollution and create more mindful consumer behaviors. 

This year, Sustainable Coastlines are the stars of Now And Forever, an organisation that has removed over a half-million pounds of beach debris from Hawaii’s coastlines and works with nearly 45,000 students and over 30,000 volunteers to inspire coastal stewardship through cleanups, education, social media, and more.  

In this first episode, Vans’ family members Pua DeSoto, Dane Gudauskas and Imai DeVault join the Sustainable Coastlines team to lend a hand at a beach clean-up separating the beach from the hoards of microplastics coating our shoreline. 

Ingested microplastic particles can physically damage organs and leach hazardous chemicals, and are bio-accumulated through the food chain causing harm, injury, and death in a myriad of marine species. In humans they have been speculated to contribute toward a host of conditions such as declining fertility, inflammation, and neurotoxicity.

Grassroots initiatives such as Sustainable Coastlines’ do more than just remove local deposits of trash from the shoreline, they raise awareness to a much bigger issue of climate change, marine conservation and planetary health, by giving community members a direct hands-on-experience of the removing plastics from nature, and educating them on preventive solutions. 

Respect.