Patagonia Case Study

Ever since its start in 1973, Patagonia has always been on the right track of corporate social responsibility. Patagonia took corporate social responsibility to a whole other level within their supply chain which complied with human rights and environmental issues at a global scale. It started by partnering with factories they thought shared the same value and beliefs Patagonia held: “you can’t make good products in a bad factory.” Ever since Patagonia has improved in exercising their belief on how to do business. In the beginning of the 1990’s Patagonia began to see if they were actually exercising their beliefs by visiting factories they held contracts with, based on whether the factory was compliant with a visit along with their actual visit

Then in 1996, switched to using organically grown cotton. The company even began to construct wet suits made from renewable bio-rubber unpatented to allow other companies to follow its steps in environmental responsibility. The entire company put its entire line of products as recyclable through it COmmon Threads Partnership, to avoid the waste of materials during its post wear. In 2007 Patagonia begins to protect the environment under its corporate responsibility with its launch of The Footprint Chronicles®, which would trace the social and environmental impact of Patagonia’s products. This caused for and internal retraining of their employees who perform the supply chain visits and audits to fully understand their code of honor. This first step of integrating the environment with human rights led towards the Sustainable Apparel Coalition in 2010, Patagonia gathered top leaders in apparel and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to create an index of how they perform in social and environmental responsibility. This coalition represents a third of the clothing and footwear produced in the world. They also became the first outdoor apparel to work with Fair Trade USA on its Fair Trade Certified apparel which began to expand after its success in India’s mills