Broughton Quarterly - Fall 2008 - (Page 35) 31, 1991, when 120 employees—many of them friends and family— were let go. The event proved enlightening to Chouinard, who recalled realizing: “Endless growth in a finite world? It’s ridiculous.” It seemed that the environmental crisis he had noticed years before was now dovetailing with the business side of his life. He took his managers on a trip to the real Patagonia for a sort of vision quest. From that meeting emerged the first board of directors and a mission statement—authored by ecologist, author, and friend, Jerry Mander—that has since shaped the company’s path. The statement’s underlying tenet is sustainability, but a sustainability that goes beyond environmentally sound decision making. Patagonia’s brand of sustainability also accounts for healthy communities, happy employees, and a thriving business. The Patagonia creation story is a good yarn, full of ups, downs, and discovery. But does anyone in today’s fiercely competitive business world want to hear that they should be diverting profits to activist organizations, that they should be growing at a managed rate, that they should make every decision with the environmental crisis in mind? Apparently so. According to Rick Ridgeway, Chouinard’s longtime fellow adventurer and currently the head of the company’s international marketing and environmental programs, business schools are taking note of the Patagonia model.“There’s a definite fire among young people to learn from the Patagonia example,” Ridgeway said. According to a recent survey, a “measurable percentage” of case studies in business schools were about Patagonia, a finding that Ridgeway has also heard anecdotally.“The current generation of young businesspeople is paying attention to what Patagonia has done … They want to incorporate our lessons into their own careers … and we take a considerable amount of satisfaction in knowing that.” While there’s little room for advancement at Patagonia, a company whose growth is managed tightly, 900 people apply for each new job posted. But to some extent, the Patagonia way doesn’t need any more recruits to be an effective method for change. That’s thanks to One Percent for the Planet (OnePercentForThePlanet.org), a program cofounded by Chouinard whereby companies give one percent of their annual profits to non-governmental organizations of their choice. Furthermore, Chouinard and his associates fund Conservación Patagonica, a land trust in Patagonia that’s buying up large swaths of property to turn into national parks in Chile and Argentina. And Chouinard is still actively traveling the world to seek out environment-friendly technologies and practices that his company can integrate. He was just in Japan, where a factory is ready to “close the circle” on the clothing that Patagonia makes from recycled soda-pop bottles. The factory can recycle the alreadyrecycled shirts when they get old and worn. “The Japanese are still kicking our ass,” said Chouinard.“They have long-term goals. Ours [in America] are very short-term. … They see the end of oil coming real soon. We’re slow. We always go west whenever we need more resources. Free trade and globalism is the new West. The Japanese, they live on islands, they understand. Plus, Buddhists understand that there’s a beginning and an end, whereas a lot of Americans can’t accept the fact that they’re gonna die.” Let’s just hope that, for the world’s sake, more American businesses accept the fact that they need to start thinking globally for once. For if Chouinard’s message falls on too many deaf ears, the future of American business—not to mention the fate of such remarkable Q locales as Patagonia the place—might be grim. PATAGONIA Great Pacific iron Works (Patagonia’s headquarters and main retail store) is located 10 minutes south of the Santa Barbara County line at 235 W. Santa Clara St., Ventura 93001. Call 805.643.6074 or log onto Patagonia.com. Other Patagonia dealers nearby: Mountain Air Sports 14 State St. Santa Barbara 805.962.0049 Real Cheap Sports 36 W. Santa Clara St. Ventura 805.648.3803 BroughtonQuarterly.com 35 http://www.OnePercentForThePlanet.org http://www.Patagonia.com http://www.BroughtonQuarterly.com
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