Patagonia: Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Overview

• According to CSR Hub, Patagonia has a CSR rating of 100% compared with 18,051 companies. The rating by CSR Hub is propelled by 724 industry-leading CSR/ESG data sources, including ESG analyst, crowd, government, publication, & and not-for-profit data.
• The company is "widely known as an outdoor and adventure-wear brand that leads the way on taking care of our earth."
• To describe its commitment to sustainability and a cleaner environment, Patagonia ran a Black Friday ad aimed at discouraging customers from purchasing too many of its products.
• The company is said to be highly effective with respect to sustainability by targeting consumers who care about the environment and the outdoors and creating alignment between its business and operational model.
• Patagonia is ranked as one of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies” for more than six years in a row.
• Part of its business model also includes an emphasis on helping to protect the very thing that top consumers care about most: the outdoors.
• The company's effort is best summarized in their “Reason for Being,” which emphasizes the connection between their customer’s love of outdoors, and Patagonia’s dedication to protecting it.
• In 1985, Patagonia has pledged 1% of sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. Since then, the company has awarded over $89 million in cash and in-kind donations to domestic and international grassroots environmental groups making a difference in their local communities.
• In 2002, the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, and Craig Mathews, owner of Blue Ribbon Flies, created a non-profit corporation to encourage other businesses to do the same.

Sustainability Efforts

• Patagonia tries to demonstrate its efforts towards better and safer earth to both employees and customers alike through its mission statement, which is to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
• The Product Lifecycle Initiative by the company is based on the commonly know “4 R’s”: Reduce, Repair, Reuse, and Recycle.
• To keep resources from being used in the first place, Patagonia offers durable, high-quality products that are made with low-impact inputs, like using recycled materials or organic cotton, instead of high-pesticide conventional cotton.
• Furthermore, to minimize further impact, they offer services like in-store repairs, online “repair guides,” partnerships with consignment stores, recycling programs, and even a piloted “trade-in” program in Portland that accepts used goods for new ones.

Environmental Efforts

• According to Good On You, All of the cotton pieces used by Patagonia is certified organic by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and also, bluesign® certified for some of its fabrics.
• A high proportion of its materials are made from recycled fabrics, including its polyester, nylon, and wool.
• The company also belongs to both the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and 1% For The Planet and rejects fast fashion by creating high-quality, long-lasting products.
• Patagonia also offers a repair and reuse program.
• To demonstrate its commitment towards a cleaner environment, the company went as far as discouraging customers from purchasing too many of its products.
• The brand ran a Black Friday campaign dubbed “Don’t buy this jacket,” designed to tackle the issues of consumerism.
• It understands that buying less is one of the major steps shoppers can take to reduce their eco-footprint.
• According to the company, “It would be hypocritical for us to work for environmental change without encouraging customers to think before they buy.”
• Patagonia donates time, services, and at least 1% of its sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups all over the world who work to help reverse the tide.

Social Responsibility Efforts

• In 2002, the company hired a manager of Social Responsibility to monitor social compliance throughout the supply chain and work with the FLA.
• In 2010, Patagonia elevated the Social Responsibility Manager position to a high-level director of Social and Environmental Responsibility.
• This move was made by the company in order to integrate social and environmental work at the factory level.
• Patagonia has integrated their value proposition through its entire corporate system, most obviously through the Product Lifecycle Initiative, supply chain management and transparency, and company structure. These decisions have allowed the company to differentiate itself by more than just price and quality, and create a strong reputation that appeals to its core consumers.
• When considering new production factories, or evaluating current ones, Patagonia takes a fourfold vetting approach—one that considers social and environmental practices equally with quality standards and business requirements like financial stability, adequate capacity, and fair pricing.
• Its Social/Environmental Responsibility (SER) team can veto a decision to work with a new factory (as can, as always, its quality team), a rare practice in the apparel business.

Summary