Thank You President Joffrey for the
welcome I'd like to inform everyone
before I start our lecture that
tonight's speaker will be autographing
books following the lecture hello as you
just heard my name is Nick Cox co-chair
the national affairs planning committee
tonight speaker Yvonne Stern art is the
national affairs innovation epic series
keynote speaker
Yvonne Shawn art is the founder of
Shannara equipment which is now known as
black diamond and the founder and owner
of Patagonia mr. Chen art is also the
author of two books climbing ice and let
my people go surfing despite owning a
very successful and very profitable
business mr. snart has quite a different
history the most business owners
learning how to climb as a member of the
southern falconry Club excuse me the
California Southern California targeted
Club at the age of 14 mr. Chanin spent
the majority of his youth outdoors and
in particular climbing climbing with a
rope stolen from a telephone company mr.
Shannara spent 200 plus days out of
every year living under the stars
subsisting on a cheap diet of oatmeal
potatoes squirrel porcupine and
wholesale dented cat food cans the last
menu item wasn't fat confirmed to me by
mr. Renard when I picked him up at the
airport the life in this life in the
outdoors defined the way Evon and his
wife Melinda jernard built Patagonia we
often hear about the environmental
problems facing us but as a whole
Dolittle to address these problems
Patagonia is mr. Schue nards response to
this challenge
it offers environmentally concerned
consumers and adventurers alike
top-notch clothing made from organic
cotton and recycled materials I myself
own a fleece made from recycled pop
bottles which I myself bragging about as
an environmentalist and outdoor
enthusiast in a Patagonia I am pleased
to introduce Yvonne canard
what I thought I was gonna be talking to
a couple classes or something I didn't
know I was gonna be in the Great Hall
well thank you for inviting me here I am
I think my climbing career started when
I was a baby before I could walk because
we lived in Maine and little
french-canadian town where nobody spoke
English and we had a priest living
upstairs boarding with us and he used to
enticed me to climb up the stairs when I
was a little baby because at the top it
give me a spoonful of honey so I think
that's where I learned that there's
rewards in high places when I was we
moved to California when I was seven
years old and I couldn't speak English I
was put in public school and within a
few days I ran away from school so
that's kind of the start of my going in
a different direction I think my
favorite quote about entrepreneurs as if
you want to understand the entrepreneurs
study the juvenile delinquent like I got
in the fall can dream when I was about
12 years old which is you know training
hawks and falcons to hunt I mean they
already know how to hunt it's you have
to train them to hunt for you and I've
been kind of a student of Zen philosophy
most of my life and I think my first
lesson in Zen was
having to stay up trapping a wild
goshawk and having putting him on your
hand and having him fly off and you put
him back on he flies off put him back on
and you do that all night long until
finally it falls asleep on your hand and
then that's a quick way to build trust
and I think the Zen master would have to
say you know just who's getting trained
here anyway so I've used lessons and
kind of Zen philosophy in business
because you know we don't focus on
profits we focus on the process if the
process is growing well I know the
profits will happen learning to climb
two hawks and falcons iris I learned how
to climb and pretty soon I was climbing
for its own sake I was when I was 16 I
took off from California in an old car
that I had rebuilt an auto shop class
and I drove to the Wind River mountains
in Wyoming and climb my first mountain
and so I got in I got into with some
other young climbers and Anto at that
time all the equipment was made in
Europe and the Pitons you know the
spikes that you drive into the cracks in
the rock were made out of soft iron
because the Europeans had an attitude
towards mountains that you conquer them
and you leave them you'll put up a route
and you leave everything in place to
make it easier for the next person well
we were kind of students of John Muir
and Thoreau and Emerson and the American
naturist philosophers and we had an
attitude that you should climb these
mountains and Leave No Trace of having
been there
and the problem was these soft iron
Pitons were meant to be used only once
if she tried to take him out the head
would break off and so I decided to make
some Pitons out of hard steel instead of
iron that could be put in and taken out
repeatedly well I made some for myself I
taught myself blacksmithing bought an
anvil and a forge and made a few for
myself and then for a few friends and
then friends and Friends and then pretty
soon I'm selling these things I'm making
two an hour and I'm selling them for a
dollar and a half each now you might
think that's pretty cheap but at that
the European pitas are selling for
fifteen cents each so that's ten times
but it soon proved that we were able to
do more difficult rocks climbs with
these Pitons
in fact we were climbing in Yosemite and
we were able to do 10-day routes on El
Capitan taking only 30 or 40 of these
and using them repeatedly and pretty
soon the world realized that we were
doing much harder climbs than existed
anywhere in the world with this new
equipment so even though I never wanted
to be a businessman I suddenly was in
the business of making climbing
equipment so I PETA has led to making
the snap links to carabiners and then
quite a few other products for rock
climbing and our philosophy of design at
the time was from antoine sanic zu pray
which was that perfection is achieved
not when you can't any add anything more
to a product but when you can't take
anything away so we were kind of
convinced that simplicity was was the
way and so the business grew and pretty
soon they got to be more and more
climbers
when I started climbing if you saw a
Vibram sole on a trail and you caught up
with the person you knew that person
that's how a few climbers they were but
in the 70s they got to be more and more
climbers who are putting in Pitons and
taking him out and I started realizing
that we were destroying the cracks we
were making big holes in the crowd you
could tell where a Piton had been and
that wasn't good and we were you know it
was an unintended consequence which you
know almost every technology you find
has an unintended negative consequence
and that was the one that we discovered
and so we decided to eliminate Pitons we
felt we were responsible for this damage
so therefore we had to do something
about it
so we developed a method of climbing
where we took these little aluminum
chalks on a on a wire and you could just
put them in with your finger and take
them out with your finger and they were
just as safe and and actually better
than using Pitons however people
climbers that were used to hammering
into one of these Pitons was a big
hammer didn't trust them at first
especially the Europeans and so myself
and another friend client did a route on
El Capitan with no Pitons to prove that
you could do this if you could do a
route on El Capitan and no Pitons you
could do any route in the world so we
had to lead by example
well you know over the years we
basically redesigned every piece of
climbing equipment I'm not an inventor
I'm an innovator you know the difference
between invention and innovation is
invention is
zero to one innovation is one to one
thousand I'm an innovator I look at a
product and I say I can make this better
but I have to start with an existing
product I'm not very good at imagining
something out of the blue then making it
so pretty soon we had 80% of the
climbing equipment market worldwide but
we weren't making any money we're too
idealistic and it was just you know we
we weren't doing it for the money we
were doing it just for the passion and
and and we were on the cutting edge of
climbing and every time we invented or
came up with some better gear it allowed
us to do more difficult climbs
in fact we redesigned every single piece
of ice climbing equipment and it was so
advanced nobody knew what to do with it
so I had to write a book on how to use
it we were that far ahead of the market
well I came back from a climbing trip in
Scotland one time in the winter and I
had bought a rugby shirt now this this
is when active sportswear for men was
basically gray sweatpants and
sweatshirts men did not wear any
colorful active clothing and I brought
back this rugby shirt it had stripes on
it blue and yellow and red and I bought
it because I thought it made a really
good climbing shirt it was really tough
had a collar so that the gear sling
didn't cut in your neck and I started
wearing it climbing and everyone's
coming up to me saying wow that's cool
nobody even knew what rugby was in those
days I said where'd you get that wow
that's a cool shirt well the lights came
on and so I decided to import a few from
Umbro in England and tried to sell him
and he sold like crazy so I brought in
more and pretty soon I'm in the rag
business
fact we created our own fashion I think
those rugby shirts were probably the
first colorful thing that men wore so we
the company that we started bringing in
more clothing and the company started
growing and and one time I saw a friend
of mine with a brushed wool sweater and
it was real fuzzy and brushed and I
thought wow that that'd make a great
cold-weather climbing product if it was
made out of may be synthetic instead of
wool so that it didn't absorb water so
my wife went down to LA to the garment
district and went searching for fake fur
and she found some it was a lining of
some coats and you know it's a it's the
stuff that your grandmother covered her
toilet seat with have you ever seen that
there was really ugly stuff and we made
a jacket out of it and it worked great
people could fall into a river in the in
a winter and shake it out and all the
water would come off and put it back on
it would save their lives and so that
was the beginning of the whole fleece
thing so we started that well the first
pieces were very crude but then they got
better and better and pretty soon we had
a thing called sin chilla which is now
the polar fleece that you see and it
became a fashion item so we started
selling this to non outdoor people and
the sales just took off we were growing
the company fifty percent a year year
after year we were strung out
financially because you can't grow that
quickly on retain earnings without going
into deep debt and sure enough 1989
there was a recession
and all these people that really didn't
need a fleece jacket stop buying him
well you know whenever you're selling a
product that people don't need they just
want then you're at the mercy of the
economy and that's what happened to us
and that year we were all ramped up to
do 50% increase in sales and we only did
25 or something but we had hired people
and we had built up the inventory and we
were so stretched out financially and
then our bank was in in bad financial
shape they wouldn't lend us any money
they got so bad that my accountant
introduced me to some mafia figures who
wanted to lend me money at 28% interest
which ironically is what you paid for
your credit cards these days so anyway
we had to do some soul-searching I mean
I we came so close to losing the
business and none of us working for me
had ever wanted to be in business and so
I decided to take all the top people and
we went down to Patagonia the real
Patagonia in South America and we did a
walk about would walk around for a while
and then sit down and then talk about
what in the world are we doing why are
we in business none of us had ever
planned to be in business you know this
is you know we're coming from the 60s
here we're businessmen were Greaseballs
and you know the industrial military
complex was all evil and so was the
government and so we had to sit would
sit down in a circle and what's okay why
are we in business what are our values
well number one what was the reason we
were in businesses we wanted to make the
best product we were all passionate
outdoor people and we wanted to make the
very best product so that really was our
mission statement was to make the best
product not among the best but there
best hand n you know we didn't want it
we wanted to do it responsibly so this
the second part of our mission statement
has caused no unnecessary harm doesn't
say caused no harm because there's no
such thing as sustainability there's no
such thing as making a product without
creating a lot of waste usually more
waste than the end product and but if
you're gonna if you're gonna be living
on this earth you're gonna be causing
damage but we wanted to minimize that so
we said cause no unnecessary harm the
other thing we wanted to work with
friends we didn't want to work with
other business people so we wanted to
hire friends and we wanted to blur the
distinction between work and play so we
wanted to work at our play and play at
our work so it was important what type
of products we made and we also wanted
to have flex time so that we could go on
a three-month expedition somewhere and
not and come back to a job and we wanted
to have the ability to go surfing when
the surf comes up not next Tuesday at 2
o'clock which is the title of my book
which we have a company policy that says
I don't care when you work I don't care
how hard you work I care about what you
produce that's all so you figure it out
so that was one of the really important
values for us
and we we realized that we got into this
trouble because we were growing the
business like every other business like
to you know unlimited resources
unlimited potential and we were adding
retail stores we're adding more and more
wholesale customers we're adding more
mail-order customers and just growing
this thing like crazy like every other
American business and we realized that
that was wrong and because we felt that
the farmer has a responsibility to leave
this farm in better shape than when he
received it now we're not I spent a year
in Korea and the army and I I saw rice
paddies that been in continuous use for
thousands of years that's as close to
sustainability as I've ever heard of I
mean thousands of years and so you know
the Forester has a responsibility to
leave the forest in good shape not just
a clear-cut it but somehow business is
exempt from from those responsibilities
businesses according to the Chicago
School of Economics is you grow it as
fast as you possibly can the sole
mandate of a CEO in a public corporation
is to maximize profits for the
shareholders you sell stock to widows
and retired people at 40 times earnings
and and you exceed pretty soon you know
the company exceeds its natural size and
it collapses or else gets bailed out by
the government and I didn't want to be
part of that kind of a business I wanted
a business that hopefully it would be
here a hundred years from now well that
meant controlling our growth you can't
grow
fifteen percent a year and I I
calculated that had we continued growing
at fifty percent a year in twenty or
thirty years would be um a bazillion
dollar company I mean I I put butcher
paper around one room at a meeting one
time and put a one in zeros that's how
big we were gonna be if you keep that
you know fifty percent growth it's
ridiculous you're just on a suicide
course so we decided to limit our growth
to where eventually we would be out of
debt out of the I didn't ever want to
talk to another banker again so of
course we got ourselves out of the
trouble and since then things have been
going much better we grow what we call
natural growth where when a customer
says they just received a catalogue from
us and they ordered a product and we're
sold out already it means we're not
making enough so we need to make more we
don't advertise on inner city buses so
that gang kids will wear our black down
jacket instead of a North Face down
jacket in fact in fact we hardly
advertised we only advertise one half of
one percent of sales as our advertising
budget so I came back from that walk
about and straightened a company out and
I sat down with all our employees
fifteen at a time and we talked about
our values so that everybody was on the
same page everybody was going to go in
the same direction because I had very
independent employees in fact none of us
had a business degree
people had degrees in biology and
sociology and anthropology God knows
what else
and
I had a psychologist come and do a study
of our company and he said I gotta tell
you you've got the most independent
people I've ever seen in a company
they're so independent they're
unemployable anywhere else said they're
not team players so how do you lead
people like that it's you basically have
to lead by example and you have to lead
by consensus they they have to believe
that that's the right direction to go
otherwise they do a passive-aggressive
response so I basically started teaching
these philosophy classes and these
values and that turned into a book which
is just let my people go surfing the
hardest part of the book well first of
all I had to an important part of the
book is is talking about quality because
we wanted to make the best product well
when I said we're committed to
absolutely making the best piece of
clothing we can make my head designer
said we can't do that I said well why
not she said well the best shirt is a
Giorgio Armani hand woven fabric the
buttons are hand sewn that cost three
four hundred dollars and she says that's
the best shirt there is and I said well
what happens if you put in a washer and
a dryer oh you can't do that it has to
be dryclean I said that's not very good
quality
because our customer wants a shirt that
they can wash in a pail or in a sink and
hang it up and have it dry in a few
hours and then get on an airplane with
it so we had to figure out a different
criteria for quality then you know then
it's normal in the fashion business
fashion business is pretty much making
disposable clothing in fact your average
product bought in a mall is discarded
within 90 days I didn't want to make
products like that so the next hardest
thing was to write the environmental
responsibility part of the I was a book
and I really didn't quite know where to
go with that till one day we opened a
store in Boston our own store we took an
old building and we rebuilt it and it's
and it was springtime and we brought in
all these clothing from it was mostly
sportswear in the springtime and we
opened the store and within three days
my own employees were saying hey we're
all getting headaches we're not feeling
good so I closed this door down brought
in a chemical engineer he came in and
said oh so your ventilation system isn't
working it's recycling the same air it's
not bringing in any outside air and
they're getting formaldehyde poisoning
and I'd say wait a minute where is the
formaldehyde from so well
all your cotton clothing you know it's
on cotton clothing
I said what's it doing on cotton
clothing it says 100% cotton I mean they
said well an item of clothing that says
100% cotton is on the average the only
73 percent cotton the rest
our chemicals put on to keep it from
shrinking keep it from wrinkling
stabilize the fabric well I had no idea
and that's when I realized I didn't know
how to make clothing I was just like
everybody else I call a fabric suppliers
a hate come on by bring a big book of
fabrics and you go oh yeah I like this
shirt and give me ten thousand yards of
this I had no idea what I was doing and
I knew one thing I didn't want to put
from all the height on my clothing
anymore because it's you know from Ella
hi is that stuff you see in the jar with
dead lizards and frogs and stuff yes
it's deadly toxic so that's when we
started a environmental assessment and
to basically educate ourselves as to
what we were doing and I started writing
down our environmental philosophy which
kind of comes in five steps this is a
five step program number one is lead an
examined life I think most of the damage
done by corporations or by us humans is
done unintentionally because we're not
thinking about what we're doing and so
we decided to start asking a lot of
questions we the first question we asked
well what should we be making clothing
out of what's the best fiber what's the
most damaging fiber and of course we
thought you know the worst would be
synthetics because there may not
petroleum and things like that and the
best would be hundred percent pure
cotton but we started having doubts
about that so then we started looking
into it and we found out that the
absolute worst thing to be making
clothing out of us what our percent pure
cotton industrially grown and that's
because
20-some percent of the world's pesticide
and insecticide use is used on cotton
fields which only occupy 3 percent of
the world's farmland and then they use
toxic chemicals to defoliate the plant
so the leaves fall off so the mechanical
Pickers can pick they used to use
arsenic for this now they use a chemical
similar to paraquat which we sprayed on
vietnam to defoliate the country i went
on a tour of the cotton growing area in
the Central Valley in California and I
was completely grossed out we're
visiting these fields talking to farmers
crop dusters are flying overhead
spraying you to find out the cancer rate
is 10 times normal they're the cotton
fields are they're sterile
there's nothing alive there there's no
bugs no ants no birds no weeds
nothing just cotton and and then there's
no outlet to the Central Valley in
California there's no rivers going to
the sea so they all the all the water
they put on the crops ends up on the
west end of the valley and big ponds and
then they hire guys to sit on lawn
chairs with shotguns and cannons to
scare the or the waterfowl away because
if they land on there and then just that
water then they have chicks with two
beaks and three legs and it's an awful
deal and then we sell millions of acres
that have been Sala natives from so much
irrigation to cotton uses an incredible
amount of water and and these are fields
own you know millions of acres of fields
that will never grow anything again so I
just said that's it I don't want to be
in this business if I have to use this
product I mean think about let me ask
you do you think a company has a
responsibility for how it makes its
product right I'm sure you agree to that
but how about the product
itself does a company have a
responsibility for the product let's say
you're let's say you have one of the
best companies in America making the
best quality of its type in that product
and you're hiring people and giving them
good jobs and good benefits you're one
of the most respected companies on the
stock market blah blah blah
and you're making landmines and you
never thought about it much but you go
to Cambodia you go to Vietnam you go to
Afghanistan and you realize landmines
kill and maim far more civilians than
they do soldiers so what should you do
wait till the market says we don't want
landmines anymore or should you be
proactive and just got out of business
I'd say pretty good questions and how
about tobacco on the package that says
it's guaranteed it'll kill you should
you be in the tobacco business now I
don't want to make you no tobacco
illegal like drugs cuz we know what that
leads to but but I don't want to be in
that business and if you're a
stockholder in a tobacco company you are
one of the owners so think about that so
anyway I gave our company 18 months to
get out of using any industrially grown
cotton and I put at risk 25% of our
sales and I knew this wasn't an easy
thing to pull off because there was no
organic cotton around a few people had
tried it and it gave given up we had to
in some cases guarantee loans to the
farmers to grow or cotton organically
because the banks wouldn't give them
loans because the banks are in cahoots
with the
chemical companies and and then we had
to find gins that would agree to clean
all the toxic cottonseed oil out of
their gen before they ran our product
through then we had to find a spinner
who was willing to figure out how to
spin spin it into yarn and that was
tough because our cotton
since we are organic cotton came in with
seeds and stems and and pieces the
leaves and and a lot of sticky aphids
all over it so it didn't want to run
through the machines very well so we had
to find a partner in Thailand a spinner
who was willing to figure out all the
problems then he finally froze the
cotton before he spun it so they would
go through the machines more smoothly I
mean it was a nightmare to switch over
but we did and since that was I don't
know I don't know when that was what
year it was about 15 years ago we
haven't used the single piece of non
organically cotton since but that was
just asking one question start atlas so
what are we gonna die this stuff with
well we didn't know if dyes are toxic or
not we just the word already died up
fabric and there's different dyes for
polyester than there is for nylon then
there was for cotton then there is for
wool there were no books to tell us
anything about this we had to keep
asking and asking and asking questions
well we found out that there was one
company that made cotton dyes that were
non-toxic but some colors still were so
now you know when you educate yourself
you're left with choices an uneducated
person has no choices in life so I mean
this went on and on and on and how about
him you know
it's that a good well it turns out hemp
is a really good fiber used for making
clothing but it makes a big difference
where it's grown if it's grown in a cold
wet area are cold and wet in the winter
they leave the stalks of the hemp out
and the same with flax is the same thing
and it rets it means it's the pith rots
away and leaves just the fibers if you
don't get your hemp from that kind of an
area then they have to use toxic
chemicals to rep to him
polyester some polyester has I forgot
the name of the chemical or really
really toxic chemical in it some
polyester doesn't so you got to know
your polyester supplier anyway leading
an examined life and business can really
be a pain of the but I can tell you that
well after you find out all these things
then you have to do something about it
that's step 2 basically clean up your
own act and that's what we did we
decided to question every process
everything that we do and try to have a
cleaner process
we we also decided to take
responsibility for our product forever
in other words we're not like a computer
manufacturer who sells you a computer
and then good luck having it fixed good
luck and selling it
good luck it'll be obsolete in two three
years and dare you're stuck with it we
decided that we were gonna take
responsibility for our product from
birth until birth so like four capilene
underwear if you walk into one of our
stores there's a box and you can take
your old worn-out Capitoline underwear
and put it in that box and hopefully
you've washed it and we take it back to
Japan to a partner who's spent a hundred
million dollars in a recycling polyester
plant and they take it down to its
original polymer and they make more yarn
polyester yarn from it and it's 75
percent more efficient than using making
the polyester from petroleum so we're
doing that with polyester we're doing
that with a type of nylon nylon 6 we're
trying to design our jackets trying to
convince a zipper manufacturer to make
the zipper out of nylon 6 instead of
nylon 12
trying to convince the trying to make
the entire jacket out of polyester so
you can order nylon 6 so that you can
recycle the whole thing and we are
recycling we're gonna be asking our
customer to give back any piece of
Patagonia first of all will repair
anything that needs repairing and we'll
help you sell your Patagonia product if
you're just tired of it and when it's
finally all worn out give it back to us
and we'll make more product from it
we'll make jeans out of recycled cotton
we'll make a lot of fleece and stuff out
of recycle wool we can recycle hemp and
we're trying to figure out how to do
that now so in other words just
responsibility for our product forever
and then we realized like I said there's
no such thing as sustainability so we
decided to tax ourselves all right I
believe in taxes telling the truth as
long as they do some good and we decided
to take 1% of our sales and use that as
an earth tax just for being polluters
for using up non-renewable resources so
over the years that's amounted to almost
40 million dollars and so what does that
cost us you know it seems like it's not
one percent of profits one percent of
sales so whether you're profitable or
not that year you still have to give
away one percent and I don't look at it
as charity charity is at the end of the
year you've had a good year and you dig
in your pockets and give some away this
is a tax it's a cost of doing business
and in fact I started an organization
called 1% for the planet which we have
now 1,500 other companies doing the same
thing in 37 countries all of which
pledged one percent of their sales to
environmental causes so how much does
that cost us well the cost is
practically nothing because we don't
have to advertise it gives us a great
our customers really appreciate it
and
and like I said we hardly have to
advertise what do we do with that money
we support civil democracy because I
think if you pick up any newspaper on
any day of the of the week you'll see
that any gains were making as a society
we're making through civil democracy the
government is not going to solve our
problems let me tell you I mean look at
global warming and Copenhagen nothing
happened there's more happening with
individuals and little towns and
counties around this country than ever
happened in Copenhagen so we give our
monies to about 400 different
organizations all working on
environmental causes and we stick
strictly with environmental causes we
can't be dealing in social causes and
stuff because it just isn't enough money
in any case I think most social problems
are a symptom and in a lot of cases the
real problems are in environmental the
real causes are an environmental problem
I mean for instance when I wrote my book
I said that one out of eight women was
going to get breast cancer in America so
one out of eight of you in this room
well that was about four years ago and
now it's one in seven you can give money
to the Cancer Society only 3% of that
money is gonna go to finding the causes
of breast cancer 97% is gonna find cures
because guess why there's money to be
made and cures isn't there there's no
money to be made if they eliminate the
cause and the causes even the Cancer
Society now finally admits the causes
are not genetic it has to be something
that we're ingesting that's giving us
breast cancer and it could be one of a
hundred thousand chemicals that we have
in use today or it could be a cocktail
though
a mixture of those hundreds of chemicals
and so my attitude is you know let's
stop those chemicals and so we give to
organizations that are working on you
know pesticides and you know your
average house has 5000 toxic chemicals
in the house so anyway that's what we
give that's what we do it with our 1%
and then we added a third part of our
mission statement and this is the last
step and that's the influence other
companies I mean I have all the money I
want in life I never wanted to be a
businessman I spent all my time fishing
and surfing anyway but I stay in
business because I'm so pessimistic
about the fate of the planet and I feel
like all of us need to do what we can
because we're the problem we're
consumers we're not citizens anymore
we're consumers and the stock market
goes up and down according to how
confident we are and you know if you
look in Webster's definition of the
consumer is one who destroys one who
uses up that's who we are
so since we're the problem we're they're
also the solution so for me the solution
is to use the resources I have which is
my company to do some good and so the
last part of our mission statement is to
use business to inspire and implement
solutions to the environmental crisis
well we can't solve the problems by
ourselves we can't wait for the
government to solve the problems we
can't wait for our religious leaders to
solve our problems the ones that are in
jail anyway we have to do it and for me
it means digging into my pocket and
running this business as responsibly as
I can and show that it's good business
green business is good business because
the big question in America is if we
change over to a green energy a green
economy is it gonna bankrupt the whole
country well as it is now we're using up
the resources of seven planets that's
not very sustainable is it we have to
change no matter what and I can tell you
that every time we make a decision in my
business that's good for the planet it
makes us more money so I gave you a lot
of ammunition so I'm gonna open it up to
some questions right
all right
got a lot of shy people here just you
can just yell them out if you want well
yeah probably the best fabric to be
making clothing as him and you can make
a very fine shirt out of hemp some pants
that don't wrinkle and hemp is the
strongest fiber there is and it can be
grown without fertilizers without
pesticides it's uh of course it's still
legal to grow it in America because when
dupont invented nylon they saw hemp as a
as a threat so he decided to make a lot
outlawed but it's it's being grown in
Canada it's being grown and we get ours
from China which has the highest quality
hemp
so it's probably the best and and if you
use a synthetic like polyester that can
be infinitely recycled yeah that's good
okay
yeah he wanted to know the energy costs
of recycling a polyester jacket and
stuff well like I said it it only takes
25% of the amount of energy to recycle
into another jacket then to start from
virgin polyester and if you have an
attitude that you're gonna take back
your product after the customer's done
you don't want to see that product come
back we don't make any money
bring in that taking that product back
so what you want what we want to do is
make a jacket that will last forever we
don't want to see it come back and in
fact we're pretty lucky because most
Patagonia products on eBay
cost more used than it did new so
there's a good good market for the you
stuff it's just me you said you want
just yeah you said you want you to work
with friends do you think there should
be a limit to the amount of money
someone could earn compared to his
employees there should be a limit to the
amount of money that that's that
somebody earns yeah well I get pretty
grossed out by some of these CEOs of
these public corporations yeah I think I
mean it's ridiculous how much they make
yes I mean how much money does anybody
need anyway it's it's uh but you know
you can't very well legislate against
something like that
do you feel like 1% enough well you know
it's uh you'd be surprised how much
money that is I saw an article in the LA
Times a few months ago and it talked
about the great philanthropist in
America and how much they really give
not one of them gives 1% of their annual
income it may be hundreds of millions of
dollars but some of these guys are
making ten million dollars a day and the
biggest philanthropists are the poorest
people you know some of these Baptists
give 10% to their church or Mormons most
charity comes from the poorest people
and in fact you know maybe some of you
are thinking oh yeah you know that 1%
sounds cool when I get rich like I'm
gonna be a philanthropist too well if
you're a capitalist a true capitalist
you'll understand that ten dollars given
away right now
is worth a lot more than a hundred
dollars giving away ten years from now
because that ten dollar starts working
right away so you know philanthropy is a
habit and and you know next time you go
get a tank of gas put ten cents into
kitty and after a while just give it
away to a good cause you start getting
into the habit and you realize that you
know you have the same thing to eat for
breakfast the next day and it really how
much money do you need question
influenced what particular thinkers have
influenced you and is there a certain
process I mean you have come up with a
personal very strong personal ethic can
you tell us if there's a process for
that or something that you do or
something that feeds that well you know
I'm concerned about the health of the
planet I mean the Pew foundation did a
study recently and they her poll and it
said saving the planet is number 19th on
people's priorities well if you're if
you're a parent or a house house maker
or whatever you preserve the house
number one preserve the family
I mean saving the planet is number one
doesn't david brower said there's no
business to be done on a dead planet
well there's no need for symphonies
there's no need for any kind of human
endeavor on a dead planet and that's
what we're doing just read collapse and
you'll see Jared Diamond takes case
histories of all these societies that
have all collapsed we're doing all the
same things and so you know you protect
what you love and for me having spent
you know a lifetime in nature and I'm
kind of you know my religion is kind of
a lot closer to kind of American Indians
or or some of the oriental writ
religions that believe that everything
is alive you know when I climb rocks I
like to think that they're alive I mean
if there's atoms in there flying around
bumping against each other and if life
is motioned and rocks are alive
well it's a harmless thing to believe
you know I'm not imposing on anybody but
it makes me think twice about drilling a
little hole in there that's going to be
permanent so I I I'm influenced
I think just by knowing that I'm part of
nature
I'm not separate from nature I'm not
above nature nature isn't here to feed
me that if we destroy our natural world
which we're doing you know we're going
through the sixth great extinction right
now I don't know how many species a day
are going extinct well you know what the
large mammals go first well we're a
large mammal every thought about that
we're a large mammal
none of us could live very long and in a
refugee camp in the shower let me tell
you that having to drink sewer water and
would all be dead so anyway that's where
I get my influence just I'm really
scared about what we're doing to our
home planet
quick question about business models or
business leaders that you either drew
inspiration from or that you can cite
currently that inspire you no I don't
have any I don't hang I don't hang out
with other businessmen I look at some of
these CEOs I mean you know Bill Ford
when he was president of Ford Motor
Company was being touted as an
environmentalist and some
environmentalists asked him
look mr. Ford if your environments why
you making SUVs and he said well we'll
stop making SUVs when the customer tells
us to forgetting that his own
grandfather said if you wait for the
customer tell you what to do you're too
late
in fact he said if I would have listened
to what the customer wanted the customer
didn't want a Model T he wanted a faster
horse
so you know that if you're waiting
waiting for the government to force you
to do the right thing are you waiting
the customer to tell you to stop making
cigarettes or whatever you're gonna end
up bankrupt or are you gonna need a
bailout or something I mean they're the
next generation
I'm een baby boomers and Generation X
we're losers we're we're not gonna do
anything about global warming I mean I
have lots of friends that went to see
Inconvenient Truth and afterwards I say
well what do you think oh my god it was
a fantastic movie this I had no idea
things are so serious well did you
change your light bulbs no we're not
gonna do anything but this next
generation Generation Y some of you
young people you know 15 to 20 s they
get it they really get it they don't
watch television so they still have a
brain they they don't listen to
advertising don't believe in advertising
and they've had enough environmental
education they know what all the
problems are and by god they're gonna do
something about it and you know what
they're gonna vote with their with their
dollars and that's why my business is
doing so well right now I I'm going
through the best year we've ever had in
business in this recession and it's
because more and more of these
Generation Y are becoming trusted and
loyal customers and if people don't
understand that in business they're
gonna be left in the cold I'll tell you
do you feel that not in the beginning
not knowing much about business helped
you in a sense yeah it did because I
mean I enjoy part I never wanted to be a
businessman but the most enjoyable part
about business is the breaking the rules
and making it work that's that's really
fun
I mean I always hated Authority and
that's really the fun part in and I was
able to create a business that we all
enjoyed going to work at and you know
that's a secret of life I mean if you
gave me I love working with my hands if
you gave me the choice of sitting in
front of a computer all day as a job or
being the Dirt Farmer growing vegetables
that much much rather be a Dirt Farmer
let me tell you I hell on earth would be
staring at a computer all day for me um
for the average consumer sustainability
is a trend how can we make that a
lasting way of life well what was that
again for the average consumer
sustainability seems to be a trend how
can we make that a lasting way of life
oh boy I think you know what leaving an
exam and life is not just something that
business people can do I think all of us
have to do that if you want to feed your
family healthy food you can't just go to
the supermarket some of those vegetables
are grown in Mexico where they still use
DDT or they come from Morocco or you
know air for the strawberries are if
rated from somewhere you have to know
the farmer you have to you have to
really question everything you have to
know every what every single ingredient
is in that box of Twinkies you know 30
something ingredients what are they what
are those chemicals so you have to
question everything and and I think
within it within a couple years I've
been working with Walmart and talked
about influencing other companies I've
been working with Walmart trying to
green their company and we've been
working on a sustainability index for
clothing Patagonia wrote it with Walmart
support and Walmart invited 20 of the
largest clothing companies in America to
a meeting in New York City just about
three weeks ago and this represented 60%
of the American clothing businesses and
we asked them to sign in sign up to do a
sustainability index for clothing so
that within two years you could walk
into a clothing store and there'll be
five brands of jeans and you can scan
the barcode with your cell phone and
it'll tell you how that particular pair
was made how sustainable it was made
whether it was made in a sweatshop
whether it was it's made out of bamboo
which everybody thinks oh that's
sustainable bamboo well bamboo is rayon
rayon is pretty toxic the fiber to be
making clothing out of it so we answer
all those questions and as a rating
there'll be a rating on those jeans and
you can go to the next gene and they'll
be a rating on that one that'll be in
every JC Penney store there'll be an
every Kohl's department store they'll be
in the gap they'll be in Nike they'll be
anyway 20 different companies and so
that is tremendously powerful especially
for Generation Y which is gonna demand
this in fact they just they did a survey
and they realize just I saw this
recently the number of people that felt
that they want to buy from responsible
companies has gone from 52% in 2008
to 64% in 2000 right now 2010 that's a
huge jump that's um
so you know the concern we consumers are
gonna have the last say in fact I gave a
talk to a bunch of buyers from Walmart
1200 buyers one time and I said I used
to think the designers had all the power
in the world because they decide what
we're gonna drive they're gonna they
decide what color clothing we're gonna
wear they decide what our house is gonna
look like but you know what the buyers
have the most power because you don't
have to buy any of that stuff you have
the final say and that day were pretty
happy to hear that but anyway I think
that should just probably end this
saying uh you know I apologize for maybe
sounding like I have all the all the
answers but I don't it's just that at
Patagonia we've been asking the
questions for a lot longer than most so
thank you for having me here
