Patagonia: how to manage a clothing & gear company without compromising the environment
Leaders In Sustainability is an exclusive series of interviews with those at the fore of the sustainability movement, both in the corporate and non-profit sectors.
To build the best product, to cause no unnecessary harm, to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
This is the mission statement of Patagonia, the renowned outdoor gear and clothing company. Alternative Channel’s Alex Salzman discussed with CEO and President of Patagonia, Casey Sheahan, regarding the company’s CSR initiatives. Read how these outdoor enthusiasts manage their business without compromising their love for nature.
A.S. - How did you get involved in Patagonia and how did you meet its founder Yvon Chouinard?
Casey: I have known Yvon since I was a little kid. My sister was a friend of his, back in the 60’s, and we become fishing partners. Through the years we stayed in touch. I have been in the outdoor and skiing industry for 25 years. I previously served as Vice President of Marketing for Merrell Footwear, Category Marketing Manager at Nike ACG, and Editor/Publisher of POWDER Magazine back in the late 80’s.
I’ve known Yvon for a long time and in 2005 he asked me if I would come to help run his fishing and paddle sports divisions. This is where it all started!
A.S. - Can you describe the transition from being New Business Director at Patagonia to leading the company and its work on sustainability?
Casey: I have all aspects of directing the global brand from sales, marketing, finance, customer service, you name it! A big part of my work is to make sure we respect our mission statement, which focuses on inspiring and implementing solutions for this environmental crisis. That has been the key addition to my role. It’s a very complex company. We are active in 4 or 5 channels of distributions, including those we control ourselves; our direct channels of catalogue and Internet and or own retail stores. So, it’s really a fun job because we’re applying various avenues of commerce in very unique ways.
A.S. - Which of Patagonia’s initiatives are you most proud of?
A.S. - You’ve got a background in media and marketing, so I wonder how do you use technology and media to help your internal and external communication?
Casey: Obviously the power of the Internet is limitless and increasingly it is a means of telling our brand story. Internet is also a good method of giving the consumers, who want to shop for a specific brand, a powerful experience through which they may interact with us. So I’m really interested to see how we are transforming from what was a 1 to 2 catalogue a year company, to one that is producing catalogue to cover variety of activities- from surfing to mountain to skiing to fishing - and then using that tool to stimulate sales over the Internet which is a very efficient, environmentally less impactful and powerful way to sell product. It is our fastest growing channel right now.
Patagonia is such a rich tapestry of stories beginning with the creation of the company to the founders early days of building climbing hardware and transforming that into a more volume based apparel business that has this incredible authentic cachet around it. With the Tin Shed and the Blog sections on our website, we are now being able to tell Patagonia’s rich history, based on the adventures of Yvon Chouinard and our host of ambassadors, and to spread it to our community all over the world. We can replicate this story through all different kinds of media such as print, online, video or PR, and these methods appeal to me because they have a huge marketing impact to the brand.
A.S. – The new content on your website such as Vote the environment is giving a new flavour to your website, is it a new chapter with how you’re using online media?
Casey: Patagonia didn’t need to say that it was committed to the core because it always was. But there may have been times where we felt we needed to reinforce that. Now, with the last 8 years that we have lived through political climate and loosening environmental regulations, it is time to be more aggressive in supporting that part of the mission statement which is environmentally grounded and to encourage our consumers to step out and do what is necessary to protect what little we have left of our natural playground.
A.S. – Do you think this campaign will help position Patagonia as a leader in the CSR space and as well accelerate your bottom-line?
A.S. - What is the aspect of Patagonia’s sustainability you would like to build upon or improve?
Casey: The aspect I’d like to build upon is our company wide environmental campaigns. Every 2 years we develop a new initiative, the most recent one was called Oceans As Wilderness. That was a message to the world that 90% of our ocean fisheries are at risk and that we’ve been treating our ocean as a dumping ground. We’ve got to stop this or we’ll no longer have an environment that supports millions and millions of people around the world.
A.S. - Would you have any final thoughts to share with our readers?
Casey: Our founder just met with the leaders of Wal-Mart, which is kind of a paradox, Yvon Chouinard founder of an environmental small outdoor specialty company teaching CSR practices to one of the biggest company in the world. The meeting was about Wal-Mart’s new approach to minimal packaging and taking a hard look at the monumental changes the company can bring to its supply chain, to reduce the amount of waste it produces. Wal-Mart is taking a big environmental step by starting to evaluate the social and environmental impact of its practices. Our mission, at Patagonia, is to influence other companies to be more like us and when that happens, we think that they can not only be profitable, but they can be better planetary stewards!
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Posted by on 10/30 at 05:07 PM
