In 1993, Patagonia adopted fleece made from post consumer recycled plastic soda bottles into its clothing product line, becoming the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to do so. Known as PCR® clothing, it created a positive step towards a more sustainable system. Today, the company uses PCR® fleece in about 31 products, and has saved some 86 million soda bottles from the trash heap and reports the addition of PCR® filament yarn to some products in its line. PCR® filament yarn contains 30-50% post-consumer feedstock and the remainder is post-industrial feedstock, allowing Patagonia to make both lining and shell out of recyclable materials.
Innovation
Saving 86 million soda bottles from the trash heap is the equivalent of the oil it would take to fill the 40-gallon gas tank of the Chevy Suburban 20,000 times over. At Patagonia this is important because quality means more than how a garment looks or functions, it also includes the way it affects the environment and quality of life. The company works to find source materials and develop processes that minimize damage to the environment. Approximately 40 billion plastic bottles are produced annually in the U.S. and about two-thirds of them end up in landfills. The amount of petroleum saved by using post-consumer recycled bottles instead of virgin materials in the manufacturing process is enough to power a city the size of Atlanta for a year.
Patagonia still has not hit its goal of creating a fully recyclable garment. But with the addition of PCR® filament yarn they are closer to that dream. The post-consumer feedstock in PCR® filament consists of soda bottles, polyester uniforms, tents and garments, while the post-industrial feedstock comes mostly from yarn and polymer factory waste products. It offers the same performance characteristics as virgin yarn at a competitive price with less environmental harm. Patagonia makes clothes out of recyclables and makes them so they won't soon be thrown away.
In 1996, Patagonia converted its entire sportswear line to 100% organically grown cotton. Very little is pure or natural about non-organic cotton. Fully 10% of all agricultural chemicals in the United States are used to produce cotton, grown on just one percent of all major agricultural land. Conventional cotton crops in six California counties alone are dusted every year with 57 million pounds of chemicals and research shows that extensive and intensive use of synthetic fertilizers, soil additives, defoliants and other substances wreak terrible havoc on soil, water, air and many, many living things.
The move to using organic cotton didn't compromise quality for Patagonia. Rather the company reports it improved the feel of its fabric and provoked a fundamental change in its attitudes about agriculture. Hundreds of Patagonia employees took tours of cotton fields, where they saw the dangers of pesticide use and the benefits of organic farming for themselves.
Impact
In 1988, Patagonia initiated its first national environmental campaign and, each year since, it has undertaken a major education campaign on an environmental issue. It took an early position against globalization of trade where it means compromise of environmental and labor standards; has argued for dam removal where silting, marginally useful dams compromise fish life; and has support wildlands projects that seek to preserve ecosystems whole and create corridors for wildlife to roam. The company also, early on, began initial steps to reduce its own role as a corporate polluter and it has been using recycled-content paper for its catalogs since the mid-eighties.
Patagonia worked with Malden Mills to develop recycled polyester for use in our Synchilla fleece. Its distribution center in Reno, opened in 1996, achieved a 60% reduction in energy use through solar-tracking skylights and radiant heating and they used recycled content for everything from rebar to carpet to the partitions between urinals. The company has assessed the dyes it uses and eliminated colors from the line that required the use of toxic metals and sulfides.
Most importantly, since the early nineties, Patagonia has made environmental responsibility a key element of every employee's job. It continues the search for more environmentally friendly fabrics and is using more hemp in some products in combination with recycled polyester. Recently, one of its suppliers found a way to recycle polyester from sources other than soda bottles – and Patagonia is making use of the fabric in some of its best selling products. Because clothes themselves can be recyclable, in the future the company believes it should be possible for consumers to return a polyester-based jacket to them to then forward on to a processor to be re-made into fiber or other forms of plastic.
Inspiration
Patagonia's statement on its website says it all: "During the past thirty years, we've made many mistakes but we've never lost our way for very long. Although we first intended Patagonia as a way to free ourselves from the limitations of the original climbing business, precisely those limitations have kept us on our toes and helped us thrive. We still pursue climbing and surfing, activities that entail risk, require soul, and invite reflection. We favor informal travels with friends – doing what we love to do – to the camera-covered event. We can't bring ourselves to knowingly make a mediocre product. And we cannot avert our eyes from the harm done, by all of us, to our one and only home."
The World Inquiry editorial team edited this profile from the original submission of the interviewer or other source. The views expressed do not necessarily represent Case Western Reserve University, the Weatherhead School of Management or the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit. More >>
