Patagonia erupted into headlines last year as it was announced that all the company’s profits would now go towards saving the planet. ‘Greenwashing’ has become such a prevalent issue, but I was glad to find when looking into Patagonia, that this wasn’t the case here.
Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder, has always run his company with the environment in mind. In the ’80s, the company started donating 1% of its sales to environmental groups, which has resulted in $140 million going towards helping the environment. Chouinard has now taken it one step further. 2% of the company’s stock and all the decision-making power was transferred to a trust to oversee the companies values, with the other 98% of the stock going to the Holdfast Collective, a non-profit that “will use every dollar received to fight the environmental crisis, protect nature and biodiversity, and support thriving communities, as quickly as possible” according to Patagonia’s statement. They describe the move as ‘making the Earth our only shareholder’.
Their website is refreshingly open, honest, and informative. It talks about the ways they are trying to reduce the impact their clothes have on the environment, from using recycled materials (68% of their fabrics are made from them) to improving conditions for their production workers.
I would argue that technology is the source of most of the issues in the fashion industry, however here Patagonia is utilising it to create a more sustainable brand, and the most exciting element of this is, is their push for repairing and extending the life of their clothes. Their website has guides and documents about how to make repairs at home, forms to request spare parts and if needed you can send your items back to Patagonia for more extensive repairs. Good quality items are expensive to buy, so it's nice to know that if you spend that money with Patagonia, it really is a long-term investment. Patagonia’s clothes are not cheap, but you can see why you pay a premium here and their prices are on par with other brands such as The North Face or Salomon.
We can’t ask or expect every other clothing company to follow Patagonia’s lead but imagine if they all tried to just do something, look how much difference 1% of Patagonia’s profits have made, imagine more companies doing that.
Patagonia Website: https://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/home/
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