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When it comes to the environment, it's probably no secret that I'm a total pessimist about the fate of the natural world. In my lifetime I've seen nothing but a constant deterioration of all of the processes that are essential to maintaining healthy life on Planet Earth. Most of the scientists and deep thinkers in the environmental field who I know personally are also pessimistic, and they believe that we are experiencing an extremely accelerated extinction of species—including, possibly, much of the human race. A week later, as the new VP of HR, finances, and legal, he began to find his answer to the question.
Klein sums up the book by saying: “This is the story of an attempt to do more than change a single corporation—it is an attempt to challenge the culture of consumption that is at the heart of the global ecological crisis.” I had long practiced my M.B.A. theory of management—management by absence—while I wear-tested our clothing and equipment in the most extreme conditions of the Himalayas and South America. It fueled new and exciting ideas for products, new markets, or new materials, but it also fueled my growing awareness of the environmental and social devastation going on around the world. Rather than bailing out in disgust, I saw an opportunity to create an entirely new kind of company. I wanted to make sure every employee at Patagonia understood our business and environmental ethics, so I began to lead multi-day employee seminars in the philosophies, going by bus to Yosemite or the Marin Headlands, north of San Francisco, where we'd camp out and gather under the trees to talk. From a series of Patagonia ads in 2004: “Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it’s none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business.”Do you have to prioritize the bottom line above all else? If you work in an office, do you work 9-5 with an hour for lunch? Is it, in fact, critical to determine for you and your employees when and from where work is done? I'm always wary of the stories of successful people who make it seem like they fell into their success. At the same time, because Patagonia is, for a for-profit business, very environmentally responsible and family-oriented, I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I didn't. Patagonia has been plenty profitable over it’s 46-year history, despite moves to put people and planet first. The company has initiated efforts to make the factories where their products are made be both safe and pay living wages. In establishing a “management philosophy,” Patagonia’s employees are encouraged to go surfing when there are waves, go skiing when there’s powder, and choose if they’d like to wear shoes in the office or not. Patagonia has repeatedly won awards as one of the best places to work. About 15 years ago, I read an interview with J.K. Rowling. The author’s most intriguing statement was that she wrote her world-famous Harry Potter series with one audience in mind: the original 8-year-old readers she targeted in her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Like Yvon Chouinard, you might see where, in your life, or work, you can rewrite the rules to set yourself and others up to win. The company runs a cafeteria that provides healthy, organic food, and most employee bathrooms house showers to accommodate lunchtime runners, volleyball players or surfers. At Patagonia, making a profit is not the goal because the Zen master would say profits happen 'when you do everything else right'.”By creating something that scratches your own itch, it may very well do the same for others. It’s rare that we are ever completely unique. 😉 Patagonia’s environmental philosophy of cutting-edge sustainability weaves throughout its history. In 1986, Yvon implemented a self-imposed 1% environmental tax on his own company.
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