I recently gained knowledge about the company Patagonia. We have all heard of them but probably many of us do not know their founding philosophy. I am inpsired by their philosophy to preserve and protect the environment. They protect the place that gives life. I hope that more corporations follow the Patagonia model to help preserve the environment and provide healthy living for all. I have included inspiring information that I read on Patagonia below:Company Philosophy:
Our definition of quality includes a mandate for building products and working with processes that cause the least harm to the environment. We evaluate raw materials, invest in innovative technologies, rigorously police our waste and use a portion of our sales to support groups working to make a real difference. We acknowledge that the wild world we love best is disappearing. That is why those of us who work here share a strong commitment to protecting undomesticated lands and waters. We believe in using business to inspire solutions to the environmental crisis.
Patagonia and Environmentalism:
Yvon Chouinard, the Founder, is most noted for the clothing and gear company, Patagonia. In 1970 on a trip to Scotland, he picked up some rugby shirts and sold them to great success.[6] From this small start, the Patagonia company developed a wide selection of rugged technical clothing.
Recognizing that the financial success of the company provided the opportunity to also achieve personal goals, Chouinard committed the company to being an outstanding place to work, and to be an important resource for environmental activism. In 1984, Patagonia opened an on-site cafeteria offering "healthy, mostly vegetarian food," and started providing on-site child care.[7] In 1986, Chouinard committed the company to "tithing" for environmental activism, committing one percent of sales or ten percent of profits, whichever is the greater. The commitment included paying employees working on local environmental projects so they could commit their efforts full-time.
The 1972 Chouinard catalog was influential in ushering-in the "clean climbing" movement in North America.[citation needed] It was more a collection of essays than a catalog per se. Piton damage all but ceased.
The 1972 Chouinard catalog was influential in ushering-in the "clean climbing" movement in North America.[citation needed] It was more a collection of essays than a catalog per se. Piton damage all but ceased.
In the early 1990s, an environmental audit of Patagonia revealed the surprising result that cotton was the worst product for the environment. In 1994, Chouinard committed the company to using all pesticide-free (i.e., organically grown) cotton, and this demand created the organic cotton industry in California.
An excerpt from a catelog intro:
"There is a word for it, and the word is clean. Climbing with only nuts and runners for protection is clean climbing. Clean because the rock is left unaltered by the passing climber. Clean because nothing is hammered into the rock and then hammered back out, leaving the rock scarred and the next climber's experience less natural. Clean because the climber's protection leaves little trace of his ascension. Clean is climbing the rock without changing it; a step closer to organic climbing for the natural man. "
A Lesson Learned:
A Lesson Learned:
The first lesson had come right here at home, in the early '70s. A group of us went to a city council meeting to help protect a local surf break. We knew vaguely that the Ventura River had once been a major steelhead salmon habitat. Then, during the forties, two dams were built, and water diverted. Except for winter rains, the only water left at the river mouth flowed from the sewage plant. At that city council meeting, several experts testified that the river was dead and that channeling the mouth would have no effect on remaining bird- and wildlife, or on our surf break.
Things looked grim until Mark Capelli, a 25-year-old biology student, gave a slide show of photos he had taken along the river – of the birds that lived in the willows, of the muskrats and water snakes, of eels that spawned in the estuary. He even showed a slide of a steelhead smolt: yes, fifty or so steelhead still came to spawn in our "dead" river.
The development plan was defeated. We gave Mark office space and a mailbox, and small contributions to help him fight the River's battle. As more development plans cropped up, the Friends of the Ventura River worked to defeat them, to clean up the water and to increase its flow. Wildlife increased and more steelhead began to spawn.
Mark taught us two important lessons: that a grassroots effort could make a difference, and that degraded habitat could, with effort, be restored. His work inspired us. We began to make regular donations, to stick to smaller groups working to save or restore habitat rather than give the money to NGOs with big staffs, overheads, and corporate connections. In 1986, we committed to donate 10% of profits each year to these groups. We later upped the ante to 1% of sales, or 10% of profits, whichever was greater. We have kept to that commitment every year since.
In 1988, we initiated our first national environmental campaign on behalf of an alternative master plan to deurbanize the Yosemite Valley. Each year since, we have undertaken a major education campaign on an environmental issue. We took an early position against globalization of trade where it means compromise of environmental and labor standards. We have argued for dam removal where silting, marginally useful dams compromise fish life. We have supported wildlands projects that seek to preserve ecosystems whole and create corridors for wildlife to roam. We hold, every eighteen months, a "Tools for Activists" conference to teach marketing and publicity skills to some of the groups we work with.
We also, early on, began initial steps to reduce our own role as a corporate polluter: we have been using recycled-content paper for our catalogs since the mid-eighties. We worked with Malden Mills to develop recycled polyester for use in our Synchilla fleece.
Our distribution center in Reno, opened in 1996, achieved a 60% reduction in energy use through solar-tracking skylights and radiant heating; we used recycled content for everything from rebar to carpet to the partitions between urinals. We retrofitted lighting systems in existing stores, and build-outs for new stores became increasingly environmentally friendly. We assessed the dyes we used and eliminated colors from the line that required the use of toxic metals and sulfides. Most importantly, since the early nineties, we have made environmental responsibility a key element of everyone's job.
