Patagonia’s four core values are: “Quality: Pursuit of ever-greater quality in everything we do Integrity: Relationships built on integrity and respect Environmentalism: serve as a catalyst for personal and corporate action Not bound by convention: our success and much of the fun lies- in developing innovative ways to do things. “ (Charles Wendell Townsend) These core values are also present in their mission statement; “ Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis” (“Patagonia Mission Statement“). The key to the companies success is that they work with friends, hire self motivated employees, giving them flexible working times so that they can enjoy sports …show more content…
Added to this they consider a successful community, the key to a sustainable environment. Therefore they sell fair trade certified apparel, this means that apparel workers in the factories they work with receive fair wages and a good working environment and the customers receives high quality products which where sewn with care. The fair trade certifications come from a non-profit organisation “ fair trade USA “ which is the leading third party certifier of fair trade products in North America. Fair trade USA works to improve the lives of farmers and factory workers around the world through trading. It uses market-based approaches to ensure that workers receive fair wages for labour and it helps to create safe working conditions such as safety guidelines against the use of child labour. For every item Patagonia buys from them (currently they are working with 3 factories in India) they pay a community development premium which is determined by Fair Trade USA. The money goes into an account that is controlled by the factory workers and the funds are spend towards social, economic and environmental development projects in their local …show more content…
Patagonia is such a company that is strongly motivated in improving the health of the planet. Here is a summary of some environmental work from Patagonia : • $6.6 Million donated for environmental work • 770 environmental groups received a grant in 2014 • 10 fair trade certified styles in the Patagonia line • 100% of Patagonia’s products are taken back to be used for recycling • 100% of traceable down (traceable to birds that were never live –plucked, never force-fed ) • 136 employees volunteered in the year 2014 through their environmental internship programme (the company offers the employees the opportunity to spend up to two months away from their regular roles, to work for the environmental group of their choice while continuing to earn their pay check and benefits ) • 726,404 single – driver car trip miles avoided this year through their drive- less programme • 1 % for the planet (since 1985 Patagonia gives away 1 % of the company’s profit to organisations that are engaged environmentally ) these information’s where taken from Patagonia’s Environmental &social initiative report
Wright, L. T., & Heaton, S. (2006). Fair Trade marketing: an exploration through qualitative research. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 14(4), 411-426. doi:10.1080/09652540600948019
As it is a boot making company, there have a lot of greenhouse gases, and they do really care about their grants to the problem.
Patagonia represents being a financially sound company as well as meeting the standards of the environmental responsibility. The focus was on delivering the best product and not the end result. Chouinard believed that doing the right thing and leading by example ultimately that was the bottom line. He felt that if the company followed its core values it would be successful. Chouinard admits he is not in business for profits. He states, "the main stockholder in my company is the planet, and I measure our success by how much good we've done for our stockholder each year" (Ball, 2009,
Patagonia was a unique company that features outdoor equipment, clothing and many more things. The company has been in business more than thirty-five years with outstanding sales. Patagonia had their focus on its customers to make a difference in the world. They were also members of several environmental organization. They were a company who was in harmony with nature and reflected the ones founded by climbers and surfers. Patagonia strongly believes employees are to be treated as human beings so they can balance work, play, and family by maintaining a highly casual atmosphere. However, Patagonia was criticize for its unorthodox business practice from the business community. But, the employees are very loyal to the company. Patagonia
No matter how small the act, any form of a social responsibility issue brings with it repercussions. For the buying company, Patagonia, the backlash from the media was not too severe. However, no company wants
Yvon Chouinard is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, legendary climber, and surfer. He is also a writer, writing essays on outdoor climbing issues and ethics, and more recently publishing a book about mixing environmentalism and sound business practice in corporate policies (Green Economy Initiative, 2011). Chouinard is most noted for his clothing and gear company, Patagonia, Inc., where he has constructed a culture that strives to create an ideal working environment where employees thrive and become more productive at the same time. Patagonia’s environmental ethic is outstanding, having founded 1% For the Planet, an alliance of businesses that contribute at least 1 percent of their net annual sales to approved environmental organizations, and is working to revolutionize supply chain transparency in their company. Sustainable business practices have been at the core of the company since it was founded in the late 1950s – long before sustainability and being “green” became buzzwords. Yvon Chouinard is not only a successful business person, but a leader with discipline, vision, and influence.
The initial start of Patagonia was for profit; however, as the company began to expand their operations into clothing, learning about the raw materials and inputs into their products led to an awakening moment for the owner. The founder and owner, Yvon Chouinard, questioned whether his company could operate under practices that did not necessarily align with his own beliefs. The mission to change Patagonia’s operating practices from start to finish - from manufacturer to supplier to vendor, and ultimately to consumers, is a duty each company owes its stakeholders and a change Chouinard pursued. Ultimately, the paradigm shift in operating practices has yielded the company an annual revenue of 300 million dollars and the respect as one of the most socially conscious
The “planet” aspect of a typical company is supposed to show how the company is benefitting the planet, ecologically, rather than destroying the Earth with pollution and waste. Better World Book’s term for the planet aspect is “loving your mother”, which applies to loving planet Earth. There is a book by Paul Hawken called, The Ecology of Commerce. In this book, Paul argues that, “a true economy mimics ecology in its circular no-waste systems and healthy fecundity of niches” (Better World Books). The company’s website discusses how they are trying to make the delivery of their books more sustainable. The company is going through a program where they know their carbon footprint and are trying to balance out the amount of carbon emissions that are generated through the entirety of the company’s production, including shipping and handling. They have done t...
As mentioned above, senseless growth and corporate profit are not among Patagonia’s primary goals. Actually, Yvon Chouinard even considers it as “really bad”. He is comfortable with a 3-5% annual growth, a range that would make the company earn sufficient profit to continue its environmental actions. They, as a company, are aware that their business activity represents an environmental harm since it creates pollution. For this reason, they work steadily to reduce those harms trying to find solutions to this environmental crisis. Patagonia even partners with other corporations to reduce environmental issues. The company aims to create the circumstances under which humans and nature can occur in a productive harmony. For this reason, the primary objective of Patagonia can be identified in the desire to make the whole business sustainable by creating an elastic and free working environment, increasing employee’ satisfaction, having a good influence on the planet and, last but not least, making the best quality product for their customer. Quality is a keyword in their mission and describes a whole way of doing business. Quality is not only correlated with products but it also linked to customer satisfaction, workplace and stakeholders’ relationship. All this without being of harm for the
It will be advantageous for the company if they can project themselves as responsible corporate citizen and an environment friendly company. Social enrichment schemes, recycling schemes and educational funds can be initiated to cater to this cause and long term goal.
The industry is in a rising trend and from 2010 to 2015 it has grown annually 1,5%, with an expected 2% growth rate from 2015 to 2020 (Alvarez, 2015). There are over 3,150 brands in this industry and in terms of market shares, wholesale company REI leads the local industry (Alvarez, 2015). However, REI is not far away from the industry’s biggest brands, The North Face, Columbia and Patagonia, mostly due to their strong brand recognition and loyalty. According to The Guardian, The North Face is the biggest with 2,3 billion revenue and Patagonia growing fastest, yet being the smallest and only private company of these three (Meltzer, 2017). According to Outside Online article, Patagonia’s sales increased 18% during the last year and it controls now 9% of the outdoor apparel market, excluding the company’s massive direct-to-consumer business (Streep,
PepsiCo discloses their stakeholder engagement as a contribution towards sustainability. As part of the company social responsibility and sustainability strategic planning, the company has put in place strict policies to guarantee a long-lasting relationship with all its stakeholders. According to the company website, ‘PepsiCo has established a strong relationship with NGOs and routinely engage them to leverage their areas of expertise or interest to help shape their CSR processes and tracking methods. These relationships have helped to better identify sustainability priorities that supports both the business model and the expectations of the stakeholders’ (PepsiCo 2013). PepsiCo invests mainly in activities linked to their chain of management, they totally applied Kramer and Porter’s ideas. Porter explains that businesses are socially responsible today because they realized that socially responsible activities build and develop credibility, integrity, and give competitive advantage.
These are their pillars of sustainability that every single one of their employees stand by and
Identify some core values of this organization as best as you can. What do they believe in (beyond organizational success or profitability)? How might their revealing these values to customers and employees create opportunities to exceed expectations? How can they translate core values into actions to produce A-plus value, thus strengthening relationships?
From last few years there are plenty of good companies telling their environmental stories to the world and even some who are not but should be. Some do it well; others do not know where to begin or how to go about it. There are a few tips on what to look for by a customer who does not get greenwashed.