Bureo® x Finisterre: The NetPlus® Story

We first met Bureo^® founder David Stover way back in November 2014. We’d just opened our first London store, the flagship location for our brand, when David wheeled in on one of their early prototype products – a cruiser skateboard made from recycled nets. Conversations were had, a relationship formed and we ended up stocking those skateboards for a few years.

The initial idea was simple. David and his co-founders, Ben Kneppers and Kevin Ahearn, were all surfers with a passion for the ocean and wanted to do something different. They saw their local beaches strewn with plastic and decided to take to the sands and start cleaning up the material in the hope that it could be used to create something useful. With Ben’s professional background in sustainability, and Kevin bringing expertise in mechanical engineering it quickly became apparent that gathering multiple different types of plastic from a beach and melting them down was not going to produce a viable end product.

Focussing on where they could make the most impact, fishing nets became the obvious answer. Discarded nets wreak havoc on ocean ecosystems, posing a danger to marine life, and the material is consistent enough to be recycled in large quantities and produce a commercially viable feedstock that can be used in new products.

Working closely with fisheries and fishing communities, the Bureo^® team went about beginning to set up the infrastructure to begin collecting and recycling nets. With its large fishing industry, Chile became the main base of operations for the company, initially collecting, cleaning and processing the nets to make skateboard decks.

In those early days, Bureo^® focussed heavily on their own product design, seeking to innovate products themselves that could then be sold on the open market. Over time however, the business shifted focus. The biggest support they found was from people getting behind their mission to collect and clean discarded nets, and they realised that they could have an even bigger impact by partnering with larger brands to incorporate their new recycled NetPlus^® feedstock into their product lines.

Their attitude of working closely with fisheries and communities was also highly prized, with a focus on empowering locals to protect their own waters, providing incentives for collecting the nets and approaching the whole operation in a holistic way that brought the communities into the process rather than alienating them.

Fast forward to today and what started as a small, niche Californian company making skateboards has bloomed into a global operation making a serious impact in the world of sustainable fabrics. It’s been, in David’s own words, “quite a ride”.

Ever since those first skateboard prototypes were stocked in our London store, we’ve kept in touch and watched Bureo’s journey with keen interest. With our shared love of the ocean and feeling a responsibility to protect it, our own adoption of NetPlus^® was always just a matter of time. We’re proud to be introducing this innovative new yarn into our product range from autumn 2024 – landing first with our signature Nimbus jacket.

For cooler seasons and cleaner seas.