Reducing environmental impact of board making

Meeting the Challenge of Designing High-Performance Boards with Reduced Environmental Impact

In 2018, Charles Tur from the MVP© team, alongside Frédéric Faure, Chris Middleton, and Cobratex, showcased innovative surf foil board prototypes at JEC Paris and the Composites Europe trade show. One of these prototypes, crafted with Arkema Elium© acrylic resin—originally developed for wind turbine blade manufacturing—paves the way for recyclable products. This resin’s unique properties enable the separation and recycling of materials at the end of a product’s life cycle.

Driven by the same commitment to sustainable innovation, we partnered with Anthony Nollet from Ecoshape© to initiate a project with TNT Kiteboards and Villacampa Pyrénées©. This collaboration led to the development of the first kitesurf board cores 3D-printed from cornstarch, a solution also adaptable to the production of skis and foil boards.

Our Core+volution project, awarded at ISPO Munich 2024 as part of the Outdoor Innovation Awards organized by Outdoor Sports Valley (OSV), represents a technical breakthrough at the intersection of 3D printing and recyclable thermoplastic composite manufacturing. This initiative aims to establish a new eco-responsible standard in the industry by redefining current practices.

Since 2023, Voga Marine, a member of the CEDRE Ambition Région SUD community, has been actively pursuing low-impact solutions for high-performance foil board manufacturing. Today, our products incorporate natural fibers like linen and basalt, combined with upcycled carbon fibers, and are assembled using partially bio-based epoxy resins.

Looking ahead, the next step will involve progressively replacing EPS cores with hollow structures or recyclable 3D-printed cores, depending on the model. These innovations will be paired with reversible resin technology, allowing products to be deconstructed at the end of their lifecycle. This approach offers genuinely eco-friendly product ranges without compromising performance.

The first foil boards crafted using Core+volution technology will soon glide across the Mediterranean under the feet of our race, surf foil, and wing foil freestyle riders.