Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
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Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
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Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#2Personal hero of mine. He pops up in lots of mountaineering documentaries. If only more CEOs were like this.
“I realized we were just growing for the sake of growing, which is bullshit.”
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#3Read this profile a few weeks ago on a flight, what a badass. Patagonia’s summer sale is currently going on [0]. They seem to be one of the few companies that actually takes sustainability seriously so I don’t mind the more premium prices of there garments. There 5" baggie’s shorts are a personal favorite of mine.
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#4Is Patagonia's marketing at heart not Greenwashing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing) ?
I get that they source materials ethically and do things way better than 90% of other clothing companies.
Surely if they truly wanted to minimise their impact on the planet, they would rid their stores of sales and cut back on the amount of new styles/designs that they release.
Where I live there are around 3 patagonia outlets that are always promoting sales of up to 80% off, and that just seems so off compared to what they claim to stand for.
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#5Is Patagonia's marketing at heart not Greenwashing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing ) ? I get that they source materials ethically and do things way better than 90% of other clothing companies. Surely if they truly wanted to minimise their impact on the planet, they would rid their stores of sales and cut back on the amount of new styles/designs that they release. Where I live there are around 3 patagonia…
What is the problem with companies offering sales?
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#6I toured Patagonia's headquarters last year after featuring Vincent Stanley, who has been with them since 1973, on my podcast http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/vincent-stanley. The culture was amazing -- friendly, productive, supportive.
I asked a random employee to join me for lunch. Whatever I asked about company vision, culture, etc she knew. When I asked why they did this or that thing a certain way, she'd say things like "Person A saw a problem with how we were doing it before, but couldn't solve it. Person B figured out how to solve it but couldn't implement it. Person C implemented it."
Critical to all their decisions, as I heard, were the environment, employees, suppliers' employees, and customers.
In most places, Person A's recognition of a problem would lead to everyone else saying, "Well, what can you do?" and leave it. If by some chance person B solved it despite the inertia, people would respond, "But what about X or Y" or some edge case and leave it.
Nearly any company could learn from Patagonia's culture.
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#7Is Patagonia's marketing at heart not Greenwashing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing ) ? I get that they source materials ethically and do things way better than 90% of other clothing companies. Surely if they truly wanted to minimise their impact on the planet, they would rid their stores of sales and cut back on the amount of new styles/designs that they release. Where I live there are around 3 patagonia…
What is the problem with companies offering sales?
No problem with companies putting something on sale.
One of their values is that:
"We know that our business activity—from lighting stores to dyeing shirts—is part of the problem. We work steadily to change our business practices and share what we’ve learned. But we recognize that this is not enough. We seek not only to do less harm, but more good."
Running sales, just generates more impulse purchases and consumerism. If the products they make are truly the best that they can, they wouldn't have the need to clear out stock on a regular basis and to make way for new styles being made all the time.
Furthermore, they love to plaster their branding all over the "Big Oil, Don't Surf" campaigns (of which I do think is a good cause), but it's a little hypocritic when the surf industry wouldn't exist without oil, not to mention that their own wetsuits contain synthetic rubber (derived from oil).
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the problem with companies offering sales?
No problem with companies putting something on sale. One of their values is that: "We know that our business activity—from lighting stores to dyeing shirts—is part of the problem. We work steadily to change our business practices and share what we’ve learned. But we recognize that this is not enough. We seek not only to do less harm, but more good." Running sales, just generates more impulse purchases and consumerism…
Some people simply won't purchase unless it is on sale. Better to own one quality pair of shorts than two cheaper mediocre pairs. Also, advocating for drastic reductions of oil extraction does not mean you have to give up oil completely. The world is in trouble not because we use oil, but because we use way, way too much of it when viable alternatives exist.
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the problem with companies offering sales?
No problem with companies putting something on sale. One of their values is that: "We know that our business activity—from lighting stores to dyeing shirts—is part of the problem. We work steadily to change our business practices and share what we’ve learned. But we recognize that this is not enough. We seek not only to do less harm, but more good." Running sales, just generates more impulse purchases and consumerism…
This is clearing out products that haven't sold. Making sure they find a home instead of having to get rid of them in the trash.
Patagonia has admitted that at the end of the day, they are a company in a capitalist society. They know, and have said many times, it's better to re-use or keep longer what you have than to buy something new. But at the end of the day, do you want to buy from a company that does absolutely nothing for the environment or a company that at least, tries to minimize their impact? They are probably one of the best company out there when it comes to sustainability.
Let's stop trying to bring down the companies that are actually doing better and criticize the companies that do absolutely nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good.
Re: Patagonia's Philosopher King (2016)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the problem with companies offering sales?
No problem with companies putting something on sale. One of their values is that: "We know that our business activity—from lighting stores to dyeing shirts—is part of the problem. We work steadily to change our business practices and share what we’ve learned. But we recognize that this is not enough. We seek not only to do less harm, but more good." Running sales, just generates more impulse purchases and consumerism…
But their wetsuits are 85% natural rubber, by far leading the industry. https://www.patagonia.com/yulex-natural-rubber-wetsuits.html