Here’s why buying Patagonia products will help you do your bit for the planet

The US company is leading the way on environmental action

In the early 1990s, at a company meeting, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard took a stack of butcher’s paper and wrote on it a ‘one’ and then as many ‘zeroes’ as he could, before sticking it up around the walls of the room. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is how big we’re going to be if the business keeps growing at 40% over the next 40 years. That would be a bazillion dollars.’ But his point wasn’t to illustrate how healthy or large or successful Patagonia was, or was to become – it was to put in black and white the opposite.

The truth is, the outdoor clothing and equipment company had become unsustainable and Chouinard knew it. Explosive growth since its founding in 1973, and in particular in the late ’80s, had left cash reserves dry; without being able to secure new investment in the middle of a recession, it was facing ruin. Not surprisingly, Chouinard was forced to wield the axe, laying off 20 per cent of his workforce and cutting costs. Traumatised by what had happened, the Patagonia chief promised himself he’d never allow the company to fall into such a position again.

So he took Patagonia back to its origins as a small but respected outdoor specialist, in turn further embedding the ethos that was, and still is, at the core of both Chouinard and his company.

From then on, rather than chase expansion, he decided things should grow naturally, relying on word-of-mouth recommendation rather than millions of marketing dollars. In doing so, he was able to further concentrate on Patagonia’s eco-friendly credentials, building on the commitments the company had already made to environmental causes, years ahead of the competition.

Sustainable in business, they were able to become leaders in supporting sustainable practices; and that is still a massive hallmark of the brand today.

Yvon Chouinard via @patagoniabooks Photo: Ray Conklin⁠ ca. 1978

Causing no Unnecessary Harm

Much of what Patagonia has practised over the years – and still practises in 2019 – is enmeshed in the company’s motto: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

In terms of manufacturing, that has meant a switch to using 100 per cent organic cottons, while much of the brand’s gear is made from recycled fabrics. There’s also an onus on creating products that are high in quality and extraordinarily durable; at once sidestepping the wasteful excesses of fast fashion and sticking with Patagonia’s roots of producing equipment for serious mountaineers and hikers. After all, you wouldn’t want to be stuck up a mountain with a shoddy coat – nor if you were caught in the rain on your commute from work. The same philosophy applies.

But it’s the work the Californian company has done for the environment which really stands out, with Chouinard helping to found One Percent for the Planet, an organisation that encourages businesses to donate at least one per cent of sales each year to green causes. Needless to say Patagonia has been a mainstay of the pledge since its founding in 2002 – and even before that it had been donating at least 10 per cent of profits each year to smaller groups engaged in charitable projects, since 1986.

Yvon Chouinard via @patagoniabayonne

On a more localised level, from the earliest days, Patagonia’s sustainability drive has focused on its own people, with a pioneering set of principles for staff. Perks include (and have always included) having no set offices to work from, sponsored ski and climbing trips, one of the first on-site day care centres in the US and an understanding that as long as work gets done, it can be done pretty much anytime, anywhere.

That’s meant workers feel intimately connected to a company that continues to grow steadily rather than uncontrollably, all the time using a cut of its dollars and plenty of its power to “implement solutions to the environment crisis.” And at a time of great environmental anxiety, the sustainable, principled models promoted by Patagonia and companies like it, are needed more than ever.