The Skateroom
Our collective future depends upon business ideas becoming a means for building, financing, and implementing systemic solutions to the globe’s most pressing needs.
The Skateroom challenges the status quo of brand and corporate responsibility, and turns consumers into active contributors in socially engaged projects.
As a certified B Corporation, The Skateroom project unites art buyers, artists, galleries, museums, foundations, retailers, and non-profits around the world in a new economic model — « Art for Social Impact ».
Our “5:25” business model is simple: we unleash human creativity and the fruits of artistic labor to donate 5% of the turnover or 25% of the profit from every sale– whichever number is greater. Through our community’s support, we have so far raised over $1,000,000 to fund 37 social skate projects dedicated to empowering at-risk youth around the world.
By placing works of art on responsibly made skateboards, The Skateroom connects people to the reality that Art for Social Impact is something achievable right now.
The Skateroom exists to bring art into your life while bringing brighter possibilities to the lives of all.
“Our collective future depends upon business ideas becoming a means for building, financing, and implementing systemic solutions to the globe’s most pressing needs.” The Skateroom
“The Skateroom unites artists, art buyers, museums, brands and non-profits around the world in a new economic model – Art for Social Impact” Charles-Antoine Bodson
Charles-Antoine Bodson is the founder of The Skateroom and the person behind our philosophy of using an engaged business model to effect positive change in the world. With a growing environmental, humanitarian, and economic crisis, we believe for-profit companies share a moral obligation to address these challenges as a united front.
The Skateroom is a vision that challenges the modern definition of a successful business. It is a counter-movement to society’s insatiable consumption and a commitment to creating a better world for all.
Charles’ idea grew from a chance encounter with Oliver Percovich, founder of award-winning NGO Skateistan. At the time, Charles owned an art gallery and Oliver was looking for funds to build Skateistan’s second Skate School. It just so happened that Charles also owned a private collection of rare and limited-edition skateboards. Though he had no clue what he was getting into, Charles sold a part of his collection and raised $50,000 to support the project.
When he attended the inauguration of the Skate Park in Cambodia, Charles discovered a reality that was completely foreign to his own – a disadvantaged community living in one of Asia’s poorest countries – a far cry from his own world. Yet, these people were brimming with hope and excitement at the sight of the Skate School. They were empowered to pursue a better future.
The humbling significance of that moment remained with Charles-Antoine.
Set on the path to social entrepreneurship, Charles conceived a business model that would allow him to donate a part of the company’s profits to keep supporting social projects in disfavored environments. Despite initial reluctance and doubt from artists and retailers alike, Charles launched the production of his own art editions on skateboards and gave birth to The Skateroom.
Since its beginnings, The Skateroom has contributed over $1,000,000 to social projects around the world and continues to expand its network of partners and impact across borders. For Charles and his passionate team, every moment is a reminder that businesses and individuals have the power to change the world.
With more people believing in our vision every day, our mission has only just started.
Although we could be considered a social business as per our track record, since 100% of our profits were invested to support NGOs, the philosophy of the company is to behave as a leading example of the social enterprise category.
With a growing environmental, humanitarian, and economical crisis, we believe for-profit companies share a moral obligation to address these challenges as a united front. Achieving systemic change is possible by using their power as a force for good and through collaboration across different sectors. As a social enterprise, we are creating new relationships by engaging different stakeholders with complementary competencies: artists, art-buyers, and social projects empowering disadvantaged children.
This is how we use art for social impact.
Our motivation is to show that a company can do things differently: supporting communities, minimizing its environmental impact while being profitable in order to inspire other traditional businesses to follow the same path. This choice is driven by our inner conviction that a greater impact could be achieved by persuading the traditional organizations to adopt a more socially driven business model, rather than concretizing the existing but limited opportunities of social business in the economy. Our final aspiration is to create a suction effect that would lead to deep economic change and consciously engaged consumption.
Our Social Impact is at the core of who we are and what we stand for. Our ‘5:25’ business model is simple: by unleashing human creativity and the fruits of artistic labor, we either contribute 5% of the turnover or 25% of the profit from of every sale – whichever amount is greater – to fund social projects dedicated to moving humanity forward. The final funds given to support these projects thus depend on various factors among which are the edition size, the price, the retailer’s margin, the royalties paid to the artists and foundations.
Since the start of our project in 2014, we have proudly funded more than $700,000 in support of various social projects empowering youth and children around the world.
Through our sales, we mainly finance social projects that use skateboarding as a tool to empower disadvantaged kids and youth anywhere in the world. Some artists have personal attachments to a specific project and therefore prefer that our collaboration supports their chosen cause, not necessarily related to skateboarding.
Through our sales, we mainly finance social projects that use skateboarding as a tool to empower disadvantaged kids and youth anywhere in the world. Some artists have personal attachments to a specific project and therefore prefer that our collaboration supports their chosen cause, not necessarily related to skateboarding.
Historically, our biggest NGO partner is the award-winning social project, Skateistan.
Being well aware that the act of funding in the aid and development sector can not be sustainable, or could even have unintended negative consequences, we are especially careful to support sustainable projects generating positive impact, with the potential to reach systemic change.
For this, we implemented eligibility requirements for selection and keep track of the maintenance and sustainability of the projects supported. We do this by requesting activity reports every trimester as well as impact measurement reports, doing on-site visits, organizing regular calls and keeping close contact with the project leaders.
As defined by the UK department of Energy and Climate Change, “carbon neutral” means that – through a transparent process of calculating emissions, reducing those emissions and offsetting residual emissions – net carbon emissions equal zero.
Since 2016, The Skateroom is CO2-Neutral certified through an external audit conducted by CO2 Logic.
Freight IN represents 65% of the total emissions or 253 tCO2e, it is the highest source of our emissions. Our emissions linked with freight OUT holds the second position in term of CO2e emissions (112 tCO2e). The CO2 impact of business-travel accounts for 6% of our carbon footprint. Then energy and commuting-related emissions represent respectively 1% and 0.5% of our global impact.
Certified B Corporations are leading a global movement to redefine success in business. By voluntarily meeting higher standards of transparency, accountability, and performance, Certified B Corps are distinguishing themselves in a cluttered marketplace by offering a positive vision of a better way to do business. Certified B Corps are competing to be not just ‘The Best in the World’, but ‘The Best for the World’.
At The Skateroom, we believe the human conscience is evolving to a point where concepts such as engaged consumption and responsible product manufacturing will soon become a norm. Our philosophy has been the same since day one, which is why becoming a certified B Corporation was not a question, but the logical next step in our evolution.