The Journey Through Patagonia

Jill Dumain is the Director of Environmental Analysis at Patagonia, a sport clothing company.  As a student at UC Davis, she secured an internship at Patagonia based on her background in Textiles and Clothing.  After fifteen years working in product development, Dumain became responsible for managing the impact of Patagonia throughout its entire supply chain in 2003.

“I was in fabrics, and it’s really where the biggest environmental impact can happen,” Dumain says.  “My environmental awareness education really came from being on the job.”  She was well positioned for the role based on her intimate knowledge of the company and both its internal and external networks.  “My background with the company, knowing how to get things … implemented here, brought strength to the position.  I know how to make decisions and how to get things done; from paper to energy to solar panels.”

Dumain highlights the company’s efforts on the Footprint Chronicles, an initiative that tracks five products and their overall impact from design to final delivery.  Patagonia adds new products to the analysis each year, and uses the data to improve both their own practices, and impart the impetus for improvement to their suppliers as well.

In the early stages of her work in environmental analysis, Dumain recalls the beginning of the Patagonia approach to looking at the whole supply chain for impact solutions.  “We were tasked with doing a formal CSR report.  It didn’t fit us – the traditional format – and when we finished it, nobody really liked it.  We’d been starting to gather all this information in the typical CSR mode of people traveling and electricity use.  Then we started to think that our supply chain is where the bulk of our impact lies.  Yes, our corporate footprint of our own facilities is important, but they are really such a small part of the whole picture.”

 

Growing with the Supply Chain

One of the biggest initiatives that Patagonia is running with now is the work with Blue Sign, which is an independent standard that ranks and evaluates textile products on the basis of environmental friendliness, composition that is not hazardous to your health, and the degree to which resources are conserved in the creation of the products.  In addition to ranking the chemicals used, Blue Sign also makes recommendations on how to make less of an impact.

Constant innovators, Patagonia is continually working on establishing buy-in on all levels of the supply chain.  The move to all organic cotton is a classic example of the benefits to suppliers when they adopt the changes proposed by Patagonia.  “When we first started working with organic cotton it was 1990, and it took six years to make the switch,” Dumain reflects.  “It gave suppliers time to transition, learn about the initiative, and find new vendors.  Then when we made the switch in 1996, we had vendors walk away from us.                     

These were vendors that were important to us.”  Over time, organic cotton became a mainstay of many clothing manufacturers, and although some of the vendors who had initially walked away tried to return to the Patagonia supply chain, there was no room for them because the company had already developed a new one.

 

Ownership and Innovation

Patagonia, a private company, benefits from the innovative and risk-taking support of the owners.  The organization is often first to market with environmental innovations in process and content, and the employees share the belief that the earlier a practice is adopted, the better it is.  Dumain outlines the decision making process.  “As we become more educated and make a compelling case to the owners, they are not afraid to make big decisions.”

“We make decisions that public companies wouldn’t.  I think that’s a strong value system here.  We don’t go back.  That just becomes the mindset with some of those decisions.”  In Dumain’s rigorous speaking tours, she has received questions on whether or not it is fair to create a competitive advantage with environmental transparency when public counterparts can’t do the same thing.  “Often, we come out and do things that eventually become normal business; we might just be able to do it sooner.  That may be a role that we can play because it makes it not so scary for other people.  Public companies wait till there is more awareness.”

In perpetuity, it would seem that Patagonia’s actions are a result of the corporate culture, which is, in turn, supported by the innovation and actions of the company.  There is support at all levels for the mission statement to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”  For example, Patagonia employees are able to work for two months for an environmental non-profit, with full salary and benefits throughout the hiatus.  There is also a Green Team which has engaged employees to take action on all aspects of business operations.

Patagonia’s Principled Leaders

Jill Dumain encourages leaders to “understand what your values are and operate to them.  It allows you to make good decisions.  If you decide on your values ahead of time, and let those be your guide posts for your decisions, then you can stay principled.”

More information can be found on Patagonia and its many environmental initiatives, including it’s most recent efforts on Freedom to Roam at www.patagonia.com.