Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard
Answers Phil’s questions
By Phil Good

Jan 15 | archive | subscribe

Chouinard is a rock climber, environmentalist and outdoor industry businessman, noted for his contributions to climbing, climbing equipment and the outdoor gear business. He is also a surfer, kayaker, falconer and fisherman. He is a writer, first on climbing issues and ethics, and more lately on mixing environmentalism and sound business practice in the concept of a slow company an approach that pursues tradition and the creative aspects of organizing business

YOU

What work do you do?
My company, Ventura, California–based Patagonia Inc., maker of technical outdoor apparel and gear, is an ongoing experiment. Founded in 1973, it exists to challenge conventional wisdom and present a new style of responsible enterprise. We believe the accepted model of capitalism, which necessitates endless growth and deserves the blame for the destruction of nature, must be displaced. Patagonia and its thousand employees have the means and the will to prove to the rest of the corporate world that doing the right thing makes for good, financially sound business.

One of my favorite sayings about entrepreneurship is "If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent."

What has been the worst moment in your professional life to date?
Back in 1990 or so and we were growing the company by 40 to 50 percent a year and we were doing it by all the textbook business ways -- adding more dealers, adding more products, building stores. Growing it like the American dream, you know -- grow, grow, grow. And one year we predicted 40 to 50 percent growth and there was a recession and all the sudden we only grew 20 percent. And at the same time, our bank was going belly-up and we had cash-flow problems and it went to absolute hell. And I had been the person who had never bought anything on credit in all my life. I always paid cash for everything, and to have to call someone and say, "I'm sorry, I can't pay my bills this month," was killing me. And I realized that I was on the same track as society was -- endless growth for the sake of growth.

What's been the best?
That's when I decided to put the brakes on and decided to grow at a more natural rate -- which basically means that only when our customers want something do we make more, but we don't prime the pump. We don't advertise on buses in inner cities to get gang kids to wear black down jackets. I basically want to make clothing for people who need it rather than for people who want it.

Sometime after that crisis in the early '90s, we started an environmental-assessment program where we looked at all our processes and all our materials and fibers and dyes and asked the question: Is this toxic? Is there a better way to do it? We decided to lead an examined life as a company.

How does it relate to green, good or giving?
Switching over to organically grown cotton was a really big deal. Once I found out that cotton was the most damaging fiber that we could make clothing out of, I gave the company 18 months to completely get out of making any product with industrially grown cotton.

But you can't just call the fabric supplier and say, "Give me 10,000 yards of organic shirting." We had to revolutionize the industry. We had to co-sign loans for farmers because if they went organic they couldn't get a loan from the bank because the bank's tied in with the chemical companies. We had to convince gins to clean their cotton gins and then process our stuff. We had to find the right mills. It was a really big process. But we've never made a single product using industrially grown cotton since then and it's working out fantastic. It put us on a whole other level from our competitors.

And the bottom line is that every time I made the decision because it was the right thing to do, I've ended up making actually more money.

What are you working on at the moment, any major projects?
My house is made completely of reused and recycled materials, so it’s fairly guilt-free. I basically built the whole house of recycled materials. Busted-up sidewalks for the walls. The roof tiles are reused. All the wood is reused. All the furniture is used. All except the plumbing and electrical. Because the walls are 28 inches thick, I don't have to heat or cool it, and it's fully solar-powered.

Green

Who is your environmental hero?
There are some companies out there that are doing some things like Stonyfield Farm, Ben & Jerry's, Working Assets. I do think that Toyota as a company does the same thing we try to do by following the Socratic method, which is that you find your way to the solution of a problem by asking a lot of questions. They ask themselves the "5 whys" to reach their goals, which in my opinion builds excellence.

What environmental offense has infuriated you the most?
The economy is so shaky because it's based on all of us just consuming and discarding endlessly non-renewable resources and you can't do that forever.

The Zen master would say if you want to change government, you have to aim at changing corporations, and if you want to change corporations, you first have to change the consumers. Whoa, wait a minute! The consumer? That's me. You mean I'm the one who has to change?
The original definition of consumer is "one who destroys or expends by use; devours, spends wastefully."

It would take seven Earths to provide enough raw materials to allow the rest of the
world to consume at the same rate Americans do. Ninety percent of what we buy in a mall ends up in the dump within 60 to 90 days. It's no wonder we're no longer called citizens but consumers. Our politicians and corporate leaders are fair reflections of who we've become.

Good

How do you spend your free time?
I've spent a lifetime doing so-called risk type sports. I don't call them extreme. Climbing is risky. Whitewater kayaking is risky. I think the one lesson you learn from that is that you don't exceed your resources. You try to live life on the edge, because that's when you get the most value -- you're really sticking your neck out, really working at optimum efficiency -- but you don't go over the edge because you die. And I think we're over the edge with society. Right now we have the government we deserve. They are absolutely a reflection of who we have become.

What is your favorite virtue?
I'm trying to simplify everything, which is the hardest thing you can try to do. It's so easy to complicate your life, it's so hard to simplify it. Whether it's eating more simple food and not consuming, just buying the things you need rather than the things you want. We're constantly being pulled toward complexity rather than simplicity. And I think that's really wrong. I fight that all the time. But it has to start with each and every one of us to make change in our lives. It's up to each individual to lead an examined life.

Giving

What is your philosophy of giving?
Patagonia will never be completely socially responsible. It will never make a totally sustainable, nondamaging product. But it is committed to trying. We simply don't have any other choice. As the late environmentalist David Brower once put it, "There's no business to be done on a dead planet."