A Common Thread

The “Company Profile” is an Earth911.com series highlighting consumer goods and services making a difference through product stewardship and recycling. Products and services featured do not pay for placement and are not endorsed by Earth911.com.

As a purveyor of outdoor clothing and equipment, Patagonia has a long record of commitment to the protection of the outdoor environments its costumers love to explore.

Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, whose love of mountain climbing and surfing imbued him with sense of environmental stewardship long before he sold anything, is deeply committed to reducing the environmental footprint of his business.

To learn more about the cradle-to-cradle practice of clothing recycling, we talked with spokesperson Tim Rhone.

A Natural Evolution

From his humble beginnings selling climbing equipment out of the back of his car in the 1950s, to his status as one of the leading retailers of outdoor clothing and equipment, Chouinard’s priorities have always been twofold:

1. Create the best product available
2. Ensure the environmentally responsible manufacturing of his products

For more than two decades, Patagonia refined its production practices and also supported local and grassroots environmental causes:

• In 1989, they co-founded the Conservation Alliance, which supports conservation efforts at the local level.
• Since 1985, their 1 Percent For the Planet program has encouraged businesses to follow their model of donating one percent of their net annual sales to environmental causes.

Recycling as a Common Thread

Most recently, Patagonia launched its Common Threads Garment Recycling Program, which collects and recycles used garments into new ones. This latest initiative, started in 2005, seeks to promote the idea that businesses must take responsibility for the impact their products have on the environment, even after those products are sold. The program currently recycles three main products:

• Capilene baselayers: This is the main material in their long underwear (tops and bottoms).
• Fleece: This includes the Patagonia fleece, as well as any other brand on the market that uses Polartec fleece.
• Cotton: Patagonia recycles its organic cotton t-shirts into new cotton clothing. Due to the pesticide-intensive process of industrial cotton growing, Patagonia has used 100 percent organically grown cotton since 1996.

Customers can drop off these products at their local Patagonia store, or send them to the Patagonia Service Center in Reno, Nevada, where they are bundled and sent to Japan for reprocessing. Even with energy usage and costs of transportation and reprocessing considered, recycling uses 76 percent less energy and emits 71 percent less CO₂ than production from raw materials.

“Nice Soda Bottles!”

Surprisingly, everyday recycling helps the company as well. Patagonia’s clothing recycling program dates back to 1993, when they began making fleece products from recycled soda bottles. As Rhone puts it, “the value of environmentalism has been one of our stated values for many years, so the idea of recycling did not feel new.”

Since then they have diverted more than 86 million soda bottles from landfills. He added that the company’s stated goal is to have 100 percent of their apparel either recycled or recyclable by 2010, “which is just around the corner, but we’re confident that we can do it.” If anything, the pace of today’s technological advances is allowing the company to proceed with new projects more quickly and efficiently than ever before.

Green Spending

The company’s enthusiasm for environmental causes goes beyond simply throwing money around (though by donating one percent of their roughly $250 million in sales each year, they do plenty of that as well). Rhone says that one of his favorite experiences at Patagoina was completing an internship at Conservacion Patagonica in Chile, which is working to create Patagonia National Park.

“Anyone who has been with the company for more than a year is eligible to take up to two months, with full pay and benefits, and intern at an environmental organization,” he said. By encouraging its employees to take up the mantle of environmental stewardship, Patagonia is reinforcing a culture of awareness and responsibility within its workforce.

Favorite of the Three R’s

According to Rhone, “reduction” is the most important aspect of the cycle. “By reducing you take care of demand on the front end and ultimately use fewer resources.” He adds that while recycling is a worthwhile virtue, “when something needs to be recycled it’s already been made and those resources tapped.”

Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles focus on reduction by examining the production of several of its products. By constantly re-evaluating its production methods, Patagonia continually finds areas for improvement and serves as a model for other companies looking to reduce their footprint, while maintaining a strong bottom line.