How Emily Hofer Of World Surf League Is Helping to Promote Sustainability and Climate Justice

An Interview With Monica Sanders

You might run into oversights — take them as opportunities to listen, learn, and course-correct.

According to the University of Colorado, “Those who are most affected and have the fewest resources to adapt to climate change are also the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions — both globally and within the United States.” Promoting climate justice is an incredibly important environmental responsibility that is slowly becoming more and more recognized. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to promote sustainability and climate justice. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Emily Hofer, WSL Chief People & Purpose Officer and Executive Director of WSL PURE.

Emily Hofer is the Chief People and Purpose Officer for the World Surf League (WSL), the global home of professional surfing. In this role, Hofer leads strategy, design, and delivery of all Human Resources, Equality, Inclusion & Sustainability programs for World Surf League, Kelly Slater Wave Company, and the WSL Surf Ranch across the globe. In addition, she serves as the Executive Director of WSL PURE, the league’s non-profit foundation, which is dedicated to inspiring and educating fans around ocean conservation.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

Thank you! It’s my pleasure to connect with you and the work you are doing in this space!

I grew up in Northern California, living in San Jose and as the daughter of a 1st generation Greek father and a Cuban immigrant mother, I was blessed with an incredibly loving and exuberant family life…but in the outside world, I grew up feeling like I was “not-quite” a part of American culture. As a teen, we moved to Miami, and while I loved feeling connected to my Cuban culture, I still felt like an outsider. Reflecting back, I believe my experience of feeling “other” hardwired some important core belief systems. For example, I passionately believe in social justice, equal opportunity, inclusion and belonging. I work hard to connect my passion for these spaces into our work in People & Purpose at WSL. Of course, I recognize now that there was some unhealthy hardwiring that occurred as a result of that experience as well, including an obsession with perfection and a persistent feeling of needing to prove myself. These are things I am in the process of trying to unlearn and rewire, because they are both impossible and exhausting.

My connection to water, and the ocean, is the one constant in my life. As a child, I was on a swim team, and we were in the water all day — every day — all summer. On the weekends, we went to the beach in Santa Cruz. Similarly, when we lived in Miami, we were always connected to the ocean. I realize that I have been privileged to live close to the beach my entire life — and I am so grateful. The ocean is my refuge, my quiet place, it’s where I find my center.

Everyone has a cataclysmic moment or marker in their life which propels them to take certain actions, a “why”. What is your why?

I think my “why” has been more of an evolution over time. As I shared earlier, my experience growing up shaped a lot of my perspectives. I studied political science and international relations in college and as a young twenty-something believed it would be my path to somehow contribute to the world. This opportunity to blend my passion for People and give back to the world is a real gift.

But more to the point, I did have a bit of an aha moment in the last couple of years. During the first summer of COVID in 2020, it felt like the news and our social media feeds were somewhere between depressing and apocalyptic. I remember clearly thinking one morning….we need HOPE…I need HOPE! We need to light the way to a positive future!

That day, I talked to our team and we agreed that everything WSL did in Purpose would be designed around inspiration and hope. We would redesign our work to be approachable, easy to understand, and inspiring to engage in…all with the goal of helping our athletes and fans feel more connected to our work.

I often say that sometimes work in sustainability can feel overwhelming and unapproachable. We want our athletes and fans to know that you don’t have to be a scientist or a highly trained conservationist to talk about or take action around ocean conservation. You just need to care. We would love it if everyone who engages with us would decide to take just one step closer to a more environmentally responsible lifestyle. These small individual actions taken together become a movement.

This evolved approach has led us to record-level engagement with fans. In 2022, our work around WSL One Ocean achieved a cumulative reach of +400 million people around the world. We also received invitations to work with the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, United Nations Climate Change, and United Nations Environment Programme, and we have seen tremendous growth in our WSL One Ocean coalition, which now includes over 100 organizations around the world.

You are currently leading an organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change?

Thank you! Yes, we are really proud of the work we are doing on behalf of our one ocean. As a global professional sports league, the ocean is our arena, our playground, and our inspiration. The future of surfing is directly tied to the health of the global ocean. WSL is committed to ensuring that the ocean is healthy for generations of surfers and aspiring athletes to come.

Our global initiative, WSL One Ocean, is our platform to educate, engage and inspire fans to protect and conserve our one ocean. Through WSL One Ocean, we are building a global community of surfers, conservationists, ocean advocates, ocean lovers and grassroots organizations who are working together to educate and inspire the world and to take meaningful action.

We are doing real work and driving impact around the world. As of December 31, 2022, we delivered the following:

• Reduced emissions by 49% from the 2018 baseline year.
• Reduced waste by 70% from the 2018 baseline year.
• Educated over 35,000 youth around the world on cultural and environmental stewardship,
• Collected 100 tons of plastic from Indonesia’s rivers, and
• Conserved 347,291 hectares of land, including long term protection for incredible waves and surf ecosystems at Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica and Grajagan Bay, Java, Indonesia.

In addition, through our work with WSL One Ocean and more broadly, through our work with WSL Purpose, we are building relationships with Indigenous communities around the world. Over the last two years, we have integrated Welcome to Country Ceremonies in Australia, and Opening Ceremonies led by local indigenous communities in each of the other locations we operate a Championship Tour event. These moments are becoming a soulful and intimate tradition between our athletes and the Indigenous community members who preside over the ceremonies. In addition, in California and Mexico, we work with 2022 WSL PURE Grantee Native Like Water, a grassroots organization dedicated to preparing and integrating youth of under-represented populations into ocean recreation, conservation, wellness, and cultural exploration with an indigenous lens.

We know that the surf breaks where we compete were once the precious homelands of Indigenous communities. It is our commitment to acknowledge and shine a light on these communities, at every location where we compete, with the goal of developing deep and authentic connections for years to come.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?

This is a great question. I would say the most interesting story is the evolution of the Purpose work and more specifically, WSL One Ocean, over the last three years. When I began to lead our Purpose work, the efforts around Equality & Inclusion as well as Sustainability were siloed. In partnership with Erik, our CEO, and our Leadership team, our focus has been to integrate Purpose into everything we do as we build and operate our business. For example, when our Operations teams around the world build an event at a beach, they are now thinking about everything from the impact of our footprint on the beach, to the materials we use to build our temporary structures, to the catering of the event, to waste management. In addition, our teams are actively integrating local community organizations into our events, from Welcome to Country ceremonies with the local Indigenous communities, to engaging local boardriding (surf development) clubs, and local grassroots conservation organizations. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was moved to tears when one of our regional presidents sent me a video of a local grassroots activation. He was beyond proud of the connections he and his team are building in that particular community. These connections, and this community we are building, in every market around the world is powerful. Our brand is coming to life in authentic and impactful ways, and people across the world feel like they are welcome and belong.

None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?

Absolutely. I have been blessed with a series of mentors and cheerleaders throughout my career. In my current role, I would say my number one cheerleader is Erik Logan, our CEO. Three years ago, he asked me to lead our work in Purpose at WSL, and at the time, I told him I wasn’t sure I was the right person to lead the work. Afterall, I had no professional experience in ESG work, and in particular, I was not formally trained in Ocean Conservation or Environmental Sciences. He assured me I was the right person for the job and said “trust me, you’ll do great.” After a few months, I realized that not only could I lead the work, but I could make a real difference. I also realized that I didn’t need to be the expert, I could build a team of experts to co-lead the work. So today, we have an entire team of leaders from across the business who are invested in the success of our Purpose work. Whether it’s Creative Design, Marketing, Communications, Content Creation, Broadcast, Environmental Impact, Diversity and Inclusion, Indigenous Engagement, we have built a team who are not only experts in their fields, but also who have a genuine passion for the work we are doing. I firmly believe that the success of WSL One Ocean is the direct result of our cross-functional WSL One Ocean Team.

Thank you for that. Let’s now move to the central part of our discussion. Let’s start with a basic definition of terms so that everyone is on the same page. What does climate justice mean to you? How do we operationalize it?

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s description of climate justice most closely matches the way we think about it: “Climate change is happening now and to all of us. No country or community is immune, and as is always the case, the poor and vulnerable are the first to suffer and the worst hit.” We believe that any approach to solve for the climate crisis will require collaboration between commercial business, government, policy makers, scientists, conservationists,indigenous communities, local communities and that this collaboration must seek to be equitable and inclusive.

Our approach to climate justice is about ensuring that we invest and give back to local communities we visit through our Championship tour, with a particular interest in supporting youth as they confront climate change impacts and climate justice.

A project close to my heart, and an example of how we support climate justice comes from our WSL PURE Grant program. We are in our second year of funding an annual grant in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa, with the J-Bay Surf Alliance Surf Therapy Programme, which provides surf therapy and ocean education to the most vulnerable youth in the community. Our goal in funding this program is to educate and empower local youth to experience the transformative power of surfing, while also building advocates for the environment. It is our hope that these youth will one day use their voices to lead positive change in their community.

Another great example of this work is our partnership with WSL PURE grantee Surf Conservation Partnership (SCP), through which we have funded three unique grants to protect and conserve iconic surf locations, including the marine ecosystems by creating World Surfing Reserves. This particular partnership is unique because SCP works closely with stakeholders at the local level including local villages and schools, then at the province level and finally at the federal level to win support for these conservation projects. We believe this is an innovative and exciting model for sustainable conservation, because it is led by the local communities, with the guidance and support of an experienced global conservation organization. In 2022, our funding enabled the dedication of World Surfing Reserves in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica and Grajagan Bay, Indonesia. We are announcing our 2023 project with SCP in Brazil later this summer.

Science is telling us that we have 7–10 years to make critical decisions about climate change. What are three things you or your organization are doing to help?

1. At the WSL, we believe we must first begin with our own impact as a business. Four years ago we made a series of commitments to address our responsibility as a league. These commitments include reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible, and for unavoidable impact, we committed to working with a third-party carbon offset partner to assist us in both auditing and calculating our impacts, as well as advising us on building a blue carbon portfolio. Today, we offset our carbon footprint for all athlete and employee travel for the Championship Tour, Challenger Series, World Longboard Tour and Big Wave Events. In addition, we offset our carbon footprint for our business operations around the world, including Kelly Slater Wave Company and operating Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California. In addition, we committed to eliminating all single-use plastics at our owned and operated events, which has led to the reduction of waste from our events by 70% since 2018.
2. We are in our third year of WSL PURE Grant Funding to non-profit organizations in key WSL regions whose work aligns with WSL One Ocean. The projects we fund range from incredible coral restoration in Tahiti to installing innovative river barriers that prevent plastic from entering the ocean in El Salvador. Last year, while attending events around the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, I had the opportunity to watch two of our WSL PURE Grantees deliver presentations on the projects funded by WSL PURE to their peers in the global conservation community, and it was truly inspiring. The work these dedicated organizations are doing will quite literally change the world.
3. The mission of WSL One Ocean is to shine a light on the great work being done by individuals and organizations around the world to protect and conserve our one ocean — with the goal of engaging and inspiring our athletes and fans to get involved. We leverage our global broadcast, editorial, social media channels and marketing to educate and celebrate the great work, placing our athletes at the center as often as possible. We collaborate with organizations like the United Nations to leverage the power of our athletes in engaging fans and consumers. In fact, I just received the footage of our 2022 World Champion Filipe Toledo recording for a new project for the United Nations Environment Programme which will be released in June! We believe the power of our athletes, our sport and our platform will ignite a movement.

Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you in your mission?

1. Business Leadership. We believe that commercial businesses have a real opportunity and frankly, an obligation, to take meaningful action around sustainability, equality and inclusion. When we, as business leaders, start thinking about questions like “How can we do this more sustainably?” and “What is the right thing to do?” and truly listen to the answers our teams are willing to offer…we unlock powerful change and infinite possibility.
2. Community Action. We know that each community has its own unique needs and challenges. At WSL, we partner with grassroots organizations and indigenous, communities to educate us about the unique solutions each community needs to protect and conserve their ecosystems. We believe it’s critical to bring humility and authentic listening to these conversations, and where we can, WSL provides different kinds of support to lift up these solutions.
3. Individual Action. We firmly believe that every single action matters. Even if it feels small, it all adds up if we each take one step closer to a sustainable lifestyle. One fun way to engage in sharing individual actions is to join us in our “Speak up for the Ocean” campaign which launches on World Oceans Day, June 8, 2023! We are excited about this campaign as we are asking athletes, influencers, community leaders fans and the world to share their individual stories and sustainable initiatives through social media with the hashtag, #WSLOneOcean!

How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?

We know that consumers today are more likely to trust and buy from companies with a strong Purpose. In fact, Gen Z are two times more likely than millennials — and three times more likely than Gen Xers — to expect brands to make the world a better place. We also know that with all the “purpose signaling” in the last few years, consumers expect brands to take real, definitive quantifiable action and in particular, invest in local communities. Our work with WSL One Ocean has become a real case study for how authentically building out a Purpose strategy benefits the business. We are proud to share that WSL One Ocean is in its third year of a global sponsorship with Shiseido, and its second year of a partnership with Corona. We were also thrilled to have Yeti join us in its first global sponsorship of WSL One Ocean this year. Everyday, we receive more data points that living our Purpose as a brand is not only the right thing to do, but it’s also good for business.

This is the signature question we ask in most of our interviews. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started promoting sustainability and climate justice” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1 . Do the right thing, even when it’s hard.

• As a sports league, commercial sponsorship is incredibly important to our business model, and we are incredibly proud of our portfolio of partners around the world. “Do the right thing, even when it’s hard” is part of our Company Values at WSL. It provides a clear north star for each of us as we navigate the challenges of running the business — and in a recent case — provided important guide posts as we navigated whether to accept a commercial partnership with an organization that is not aligned with our overall value system around sustainability. Declining revenue is never easy, but it was the right thing to do to uphold who we are as a brand, and who our athletes, employees and fans expect us to be.

2. You might run into oversights — take them as opportunities to listen, learn, and course-correct.

• Three years ago, we launched a global campaign to sign a petition to the United Nations calling for fully and highly protecting 30% of the global ocean by 2030. We launched into the campaign with the best of intentions — to protect and conserve our one ocean — but within two days learned that we had not fully considered the impact of the language in the petition. After placing the campaign on pause and conducting weeks of meetings with fans, community groups and other stakeholders, we learned that the term “fully & highly protected” could lead to harmful restrictions to indigenous communities, local fishing communities and other stakeholders from accessing their local coast lines to support their families. This was an important lesson for me personally. I learned that we have an important role to play in the work around conservation, and that we have to be incredibly conscientious and consultative in everything we do. After many conversations and receiving guidance from mentors and partner organizations around the world, we amended the petition to include language that was inclusive and thoughtful. We ultimately delivered the petition to the UN in the fall of 2021 having achieved over 400M cumulative reach.

3. There’s always more to do.

• There is so much exciting work happening in ocean conservation today! Everyday we learn about new projects from ocean stewardship education for youth in South Africa, to Coral Restoration innovation in Tahiti. With all of this innovation happening, it’s surprising to learn that philanthropic funding of marine conservation is still just a tiny fraction of overall giving to environmental causes. WSL PURE funds five major grants around the world each year, with the goal of investing in the communities who graciously host our Championship Tour events, and we work hard to choose grants that will scale over time and drive real impact. We’d love to partner with more commercial organizations around the world to scale this funding model and deepen our impact around protecting and conserving the global ocean. Learn more about our 2023 WSL PURE Grant Program.

4 . It is more fulfilling than any other kind of work.

• Leading Purpose is one of the most heart-led and moving roles I have had the opportunity to serve in my career. Whether it’s observing an emotional embrace between a cherished elder from the Acjachamen community and a world champion after a hard-fought win, or watching one of our WSL PURE grantees, Sea Forester, be nominated for the Earth Shot Prize and enter the global conversation around the benefits of kelp reforestation, these moments are truly moving. We are proud of the ways we are connecting, building and investing in our WSL One Ocean community.

5 .Fans want to hear from their heroes and heroines.

• A couple of years ago, we spent significant time and budget creating beautiful, polished documentary style mini-films intended to educate and inspire action. While we loved the films, over the course of the season, it became clear that our fans didn’t love them. They were too long, too polished and our fans felt like they were a “commercial.” We learned our fans don’t want to hear from the league, they want to hear from their favorite athletes — their heroes and heroines. Now, we ensure that our athletes are at the center of all of our content. When our athletes are featured front and center, engagement in the content skyrockets.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?

This is a tough one! Since this sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I am going to aim high and choose a long lunch with Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who oversaw the landmark Paris agreement on climate change, which is universally viewed as a historical breakthrough. Today she is the co-founder of Global Optimism and the co-author of the recently published book, “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis”. What I love about Christiana is her fearless and honest approach to leadership and diplomacy. She combines credibility, realism and science with what she calls “stubborn optimism” — and she gets results. I’d love to connect with her around her ideas about “flipping the environmental narrative” and how business leaders and media can join her in that mission. I’d also like to talk about her life, and what she has learned along the way, as a woman, as a Latina, leading global policy.

How can our readers continue to follow your work online?

To follow our work and get involved, please visit WorldSurfLeague.com/WSLOneOcean. You can also follow us on social media at @wsloneocean.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

Thank you!

About the Interviewer: Monica Sanders JD, LL.M, is the founder of “The Undivide Project”, an organization dedicated to creating climate resilience in underserved communities using good tech and the power of the Internet. She holds faculty roles at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. Professor Sanders also serves on several UN agency working groups. As an attorney, Monica has held senior roles in all three branches of government, private industry, and nonprofits. In her previous life, she was a journalist for seven years and the recipient of several awards, including an Emmy. Now the New Orleans native spends her time in solidarity with and championing change for those on the frontlines of climate change and digital divestment. Learn more about how to join her at: www.theundivideproject.org.