Patagonia: Redefining the Company

This is the story of a billion-dollar company, founded by a rock-climber, that

became a non-profit and told people not to buy its products.

This is the story of Patagonia.

A clothing company that has changed what it means to be a clothing company.

In doing so has pioneered a new way of doing business: Purpose-driven

Business.

Patagonia just put out a new mockumentary. Entitled “The Shittrophocene”, it

begins by introducing the idea that many historians and scientists think we are

entering into a new epoch. One where things are simply crappier.

You see the problem is that while we modern-day humans have access to all the

knowledge that’s ever been invented, most of our decision-making is driven by

subconscious survival instincts, based almost entirely around fear.

And we (in a collective, corporate sense) have become rather good at hijacking

those survival instincts to make us feel like we need to buy things. More things.

All the time.

Marketing tells us that the reward from all this buying of things is happiness. If

that was true the people who buy more and more would be the happiest people

on the planet….

In the early days of Patagonia, the founder, Yvon Chouinard was concerned that

people were simply buying too much. They were buying too much of everything.

Including Patagonia clothes.

So on Black Friday in 2011, Patagonia placed an ad in the New York Times. It

said, “Don’t buy this jacket”.

The message was simple. We are being run by a machine that turns resources

into money and fills our rubbish dumps with things we no longer want or need.

So, only buy a Patagonia jacket if you need it.

And if you have one and it’s broken, or worn, don’t buy another one. Send it to us

and we’ll fix it for you.

The basic principle is that if you do the right thing, people want to do the right

thing with you. And so you end up making more money.

Purpose.

It’s what has powered the success of Patagonia. And it is what is powering the

success of more and more companies around the world who are choosing to do

the right thing, who are choosing quality and durability over single use throwaway

crap, and who are choosing to make and use things for as long as we possibly

can.

Now, this is where the balanced writer in me should feel the need to outline the

antithesis to Patagonia’s thesis.

I should fill the next two or three paragraphs with a treatise on how telling people

not to buy your products is simply manipulating the same survival instincts and

psychological drivers that fast fashion uses, just in a different way.

I should point out the cynicism of making outdoor clothes out of man-made fabrics

and petroleum bases while claiming to be in business to save the planet.


And I’m sure I should give more than a passing nod to the hypocrisy of making

a film that bemoans the impact of cheap clothing when a Patagonia jacket cost

as much as a minimum wage worker makes in a week.

But I am not going to do any of that.

Because I actually believe that Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder, is right.

We cannot hope to address any of the biggest challenges that we face - societal

or environmental - without business being on the frontline.

NGOs don’t have the money. Governments are too slow. Only business can

(pardon the cliche) save the world.

But to do that, business needs to make money.

And so Patagonia have indeed pioneered something hugely important: the idea

that doing the right thing makes more money than not doing the right thing.

Creating products that last while encouraging people to consume less has

actually made Patagonia more money than their competitors.

And as much as it is flawed, it has opened the floodgates to a new way of doing

business.

The film ends with a question: is there any hope?

Well, yes there is.

Because when we finally admit that the things that bring us the most happiness

are relationships and a sense of purpose, we will have not just redefined the

company, we will have redefined society.