Patagonia: A green, sustainable approach
Corporate social responsibility can be defined as the act of folding environmental and social initiatives into an organization’s planning and operating procedures (Edmonson, 2020). This post will examine Patagonia, an outdoor apparel and gear company that identifies its core values as a desire to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to protect the planet, bound by convention” (Patagonia.com, n.d.). In 2012 Patagonia became a registered B Corporation, an indicator of it’s desire to achieve high standards of environmental and social commitment, transparency, and a responsibility to balance profits with purpose (B. Lab, n.d., Patagonia Works, 2018).
Ethical Behavior in Marketing
It is fair to say Patagonia is a Pioneer of how good ethics should be woven into a sustainability approach. Consider, and try to wrap your head around the fact that the company regularly encourages its customers and contacts to buy less. The result? Significant increases in sales and revenue of course (Zurn, 2017). One can infer that this message resonates with Millennials, a generation which cares deeply about the planet and rewards companies that exhibit such concern (Mullen, 2018).
Regarding sustainable practices, the company gives one percent of net revenue each year to nonprofits, including its own, which focus on helping the environment (Patagonia Works, 2018). With respect to transparency, Patagonia details what it calls its Footprint Chronicles, which begins with an interactive map of its supply chain and takes on sustainability issues like a commitment to organic cotton and the practice of preservation. Footprint Chronicles also explores each supplier in the chain, offering insight into such things as how many workers a plant has, what languages they speak, and gender ratios (Kaye, 2012, Patagonia.com, n.d.).
Challenges Too Big?
Despite all the positive effort Patagonia puts into ethics and sustainability, the company got a black eye of sorts when it was discovered some of its supply chain was contributing to human trafficking concerns. Some mills where fabrics and sewing were done were using labor brokers to supply workers, and those brokers were finding migrants, confiscating passports, and illegally deducting earnings from the workers they supplied (White, 2015).
While the company has worked to rectify this issue, it does beg the question: If this can happen to Patagonia, a company committed to transparency and ethical business practices, can it not happen anywhere?
For Profit or the Environment?
As noted above, Patagonia’s marketing around sustainability and transparency has been successful financially. Here it is important to consider its actions through the lens of the triple bottom line, an approach to corporate sustainability that focuses on what’s called the “Three P’s”, Those “P’s” stand for People, Planet, and Profit (Miller, 2020). Patagonia is a privately held company, and while it’s financials are not public, its sales hit $750 million in 2015 and Forbes considers its founder, Yvon Chouinard, to be a billionaire (Sirtori-Cortina, 2017). As mentioned above, “Planet” is in the company’s mission statement: We’re in business to save our home planet. People, both employees and those of suppliers, also are mentioned often on the company’s information page and Footprint Chronicles (Patagonia.com, n.d.).
Evidence of the role Patagonia’s sustainability strategy plays in their business model is found in their Footprint Chronicles, the challenges and opportunities they see and have seen in building an efficient and sustainable supply chain, and how much effort the company clearly has devoted to this task. Like the word “people”, transparency also is a word found throughout the company information site and showcased in its Reference Library, which is a resource used to educate consumers and other companies of the value and benefits of transparency and sustainability (Kaye, 2012). As such, it seems Patagonia is honestly reporting it’s goals and practices, and is in fact a leader in sustainability. Profitability is an important, but not singular objective.
References
B. Lab. (n.d.). About B Corps. Retrieved from https://bcorporation.net/about-b-corps.
Edmondson, B. (2020, July 7). What Is Corporate Social Responsibility? Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/corporate-social-responsibility-csr-4772443
Kaye, L. (2012, May 16). Patagonia Maps Out Its Supply Chain For Even More Transparency. Retrieved from https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2012/patagonia-maps-out-its-supply-chain-even-more-transparency/65581.
Miller, K. (2020, December 8). THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE: WHAT IT IS & WHY IT’S IMPORTANT. Retrieved from https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-the-triple-bottom-line
Mullen, C. (2018, December 28). Millennials drive big growth in sustainable products. Retrieved from https://www.bizjournals.com/bizwomen/news/latest-news/2018/12/millennials-drive-big-growth-in-sustainable.html?page=all
Patagonia.com. (n.d.). Patagonia Footprint Chronicles: Our Supply Chain. Retrieved from https://www.patagonia.com/our-footprint.html.
Patagonia.com. (n.d.). Our Core Values. Retrieved from https://www.patagonia.com/core-values/
Patagonia Works. (2018). Annual Benefit Corporation Report. Retrieved from https://www.patagonia.com/static/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-PatagoniaShared/default/dw08d0f6ed/PDF-US/2018-B-CorpReport-050919.pdf.
Zurn, L. (2017, May 17). HOW PATAGONIA BECAME A PIONEER OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. Retrieved from https://www.chuckjoe.co/patagonia-corporate-social-responsibility/
White, G. (2015, June 3). All Your Clothes Are Made With Exploited Labor. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/patagonia-labor-clothing-factory-exploitation/394658/
Sirtori-Contina, D. (2017, March 20). From Climber To Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia Into A Powerhouse His Own Way. Retreived from https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielasirtori/2017/03/20/from-climber-to-billionaire-how-yvon-chouinard-built-patagonia-into-a-powerhouse-his-own-way/#178a872275c8.