Patagonia’s Prevailing Power Play
Regardless of whether you are a Big 4 Consultant, Fin-tech hustler, or a mountaineer journeying to shred the snowy alps of Everest, the name Patagonia is familiar to you.
Renowned for their upscale outdoor merchandise, the Company has made widespread impact regarding environmental sustainability. Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, has constructed the ultimate anti-capitalist brand that is fuelled by capitalist desires, selling items for profit with a promise to fulfil environmental issues.
However, Patagonia’s ‘brand’ also forfeits its sacrifice as a method of preaching environmental methodology, being infamous for urging customers to lower their consumption of their own merchandise, reinforcing the idea of ‘reuse and recycle’ in hopes of lessening the carbon footprint of overconsumption.
From the beginning, Patagonia honed in on a specific issue plaguing the planet - overconsumption, where the sad truth of a capitalist environment is that the global economy revolves around consumption, altering stock market prices based on levels of consumer confidence. Patagonia's mission statement has been to question the core value of growth within the industrial economy, and instead reinforcing the prevailing importance of quality, innovation, responsibility and simplicity. Their garment’s fortify this ideal, where all merchandise is recyclable (something that was considered impossible during the late 1990s), and contains a measurement known as the Higg Index, an informational attachment that shows to consumers the impact and history of their chosen garment.
Chouinard impactfully stated within his 2013 article on The Guardian, “What we’re reaching toward is an economy not field by insatiable consumerism, an economy that stops harmful practices and replaces them with either new, more efficient practices or older methods that worked just fine” - reinforcing a mission statement that divulges so drastically to other companies we see. Think of Boohoo’s recent appointment of Kourtney Kardashian as their sustainability ambassador.
Recently, Chouinard has made an unprecedented statement, announcing that he would be giving away the company.
Why would this be a possible case to further the longevity of Patagonia?
The calculated move has been labelled as a ‘donation’, where it has been placed in the hands of a nonprofit organisation, ensuring the integrity of its claim to protecting undeveloped land across the world. However, Patagonia will continue to operate as a for-profit company, where any generated revenue would be spent on operational efforts, with remainders to benefit environmental circumstances.
In a moving statement, Chouinard has framed this move as “Going [for] purpose” rather than “Going [for] profit”.
Regardless of whether you are a Big 4 Consultant, Fin-tech hustler, or a mountaineer journeying to shred the snowy alps of Everest, the name Patagonia is familiar to you.
Renowned for their upscale outdoor merchandise, the Company has made widespread impact regarding environmental sustainability. Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, has constructed the ultimate anti-capitalist brand that is fuelled by capitalist desires, selling items for profit with a promise to fulfil environmental issues.
However, Patagonia’s ‘brand’ also forfeits its sacrifice as a method of preaching environmental methodology, being infamous for urging customers to lower their consumption of their own merchandise, reinforcing the idea of ‘reuse and recycle’ in hopes of lessening the carbon footprint of overconsumption.
From the beginning, Patagonia honed in on a specific issue plaguing the planet - overconsumption, where the sad truth of a capitalist environment is that the global economy revolves around consumption, altering stock market prices based on levels of consumer confidence. Patagonia's mission statement has been to question the core value of growth within the industrial economy, and instead reinforcing the prevailing importance of quality, innovation, responsibility and simplicity. Their garment’s fortify this ideal, where all merchandise is recyclable (something that was considered impossible during the late 1990s), and contains a measurement known as the Higg Index, an informational attachment that shows to consumers the impact and history of their chosen garment.
Chouinard impactfully stated within his 2013 article on The Guardian, “What we’re reaching toward is an economy not field by insatiable consumerism, an economy that stops harmful practices and replaces them with either new, more efficient practices or older methods that worked just fine” - reinforcing a mission statement that divulges so drastically to other companies we see. Think of Boohoo’s recent appointment of Kourtney Kardashian as their sustainability ambassador.
Recently, Chouinard has made an unprecedented statement, announcing that he would be giving away the company.
Why would this be a possible case to further the longevity of Patagonia?
The calculated move has been labelled as a ‘donation’, where it has been placed in the hands of a nonprofit organisation, ensuring the integrity of its claim to protecting undeveloped land across the world. However, Patagonia will continue to operate as a for-profit company, where any generated revenue would be spent on operational efforts, with remainders to benefit environmental circumstances.
In a moving statement, Chouinard has framed this move as “Going [for] purpose” rather than “Going [for] profit”.
