The Responsbile Company: What We've Learned from Patagonia's First 50 Years

(Paperback, 2nd New edition)

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Now includes the company's last ten years of action and innovation and an explanation of Patagonia's revolutionary new business organization: The Patagonia Purpose Trust and The Holdfast Collective

Simple but powerful advice on how and why to rethink your business structure in a time when traditional capitalism is no longer working forpeopleor the planet.

Yvon Chouinard, founder and former owner of Patagonia, and Vincent Stanley, Patagonia's Director of Philosophy, draw on 50 years' experience at Patagonia to challenge all business owners and leaders to rethink their businesses in a time of cultural and climate chaos.

Patagonia over and over throughout the years has been recognized as much for its ground-breaking environmental, social practices as for the quality of its clothes. And then, in an unprecedented action, in 2022, the Chouinard family gave their company away, converting ownership to a simple structure of trusts and non-profits, so that all the profits from the company can be used to protect our home planet and work to reverse climate chaos. In this exceptionally frank account, Chouinard and Stanley recount how the company and its culture gained the confidence, by step and misstep, to make its work progressively more responsible, and to ultimately challenge other companies, as big as Wal-Mart and as small as the corner bakery, to do the same.

In plain, compelling prose, the authors describe the current impact of manufacturing, commerce, and traditional capitalism on the planets natural systems and human communities, and how that impact is forcing business to change its ways. The Responsible Company shows companies how to reduce the harm they cause, improve the quality of their business, and provide the kind of meaningful work everyone seeks. It concludes with specific, practical steps every business can undertake, as well as advice on what to do, in what order.

This is the first book to show companies how to thread their way through economic sea change and slow the drift toward ecological bankruptcy. Its advice is simple but powerful: reduce your environmental footprint (and its skyrocketing cost), make legitimate products that last, reclaim deep knowledge of your business and its supply chain to make the most of opportunities in the years to come, and earn the trust youll need by treating your workers, customers and communities with respect. This updated edition also describes the threats of traditional capitalism and why the owners of Patagonia chose to hack the system to ensure that the company will still exist and have impact in 100 years.

Reviews

"If you have any doubt at all that doing right by the natural world is good for the bottom line, please, stop right now, wherever you are, find a seat, put the smartphone on mute, and read this freaking book. Yvon and Vincent aren't here to bum you out about a planet turning to desert, or to shame you into anything. They affirm that the ingenuity and hard work required to clean up our offices and industries will be the most rewarding (and profitable) work we do."--Brad Wieners, Executive Editor,Bloomberg BusinessWeek (about the first edition)

Author Bio

In 1973, Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia, a purpose-driven company known for its quality clothing products and commitment to advancing solutions to the environmental crisis. The company was nearly 50 when Chouinard decided it was time for another improvement. In September 2022, Chouinard and his family made a historic announcement: They had adopted a purpose-driven ownership model, locking in the companys values and dedicating the excess profits to protecting our home planet.Since 1957, Chouinard and his family have lived in California and Wyoming. Vincent Stanleyhas been with Patagonia on and off since its beginning in 1973, for many of those years in key roles as head of sales or marketing. More informally, he is Patagonias long-time chief storyteller. Vincent helped develop The Footprint Chronicles,the companys interactive website that outlines the social and environmental impact of its products; Worn Wear; and Patagonia Books. He currently serves as company philosopher and is a resident fellow at the Yale Center for Business and Environment. He is also a poet whose work has appeared inBest American Poetry.He and his wife, the writer Nora Gallagher, live in Santa Barbara and Brooksville, Maine.