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A clothing retailer is offering its customers user-friendly information online about the social and environmental impacts of its products.
California-based Patagonia, which specializes in outdoor and hiking gear, is giving details of the location of factories, the pros and cons of a product’s overall footprint, and videos of interviews with factory workers, farmers, third-party auditors and others. Feedback from site visitors is displayed in a public area.
The website uses maps and illustrations to show the amount of carbon dioxide generated per item, distance travelled, waste generated and energy consumed.
Each piece of data is also converted into more easily understood figures; for example, the energy used to make one pair of Patagonia’s Honeydew shoes is equivalent to leaving a fluorescent light bulb burning for 79 days.
Product profiles also give a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ point about each product. The company’s Eco Rain Shell Jacket, for instance, is made entirely of recycled components, but its water-repellent finish contains a synthetic chemical about which Patagonia has some concerns. Likewise material for the Wool 2 Crew jumper comes from sheep ranches in New Zealand with stringent environmental standards, but the the wool is transported 16,200 miles (26,066km).
Patagonia said the site showed its ‘determination to be candid and forthright’ about its impacts, in the hope that ‘customers will appreciate the company’s honesty and reward us for it’. Only ten products are featured so far, but Patagonia intends to expand this to cover more lines.
Jill Dumain, environmental programmes director, said the research required to set up the website had established that transport represents only one per cent of overall energy use.
‘Had we listened to the current media buzz touting transportation as the largest factor in energy consumption, we might have misplaced our efforts by making strides to geographically shorten our supply chain,’ she said. ‘That would have massively impacted our business financially and logistically and perhaps even affected product quality.’
Instead, said Dumain, Patagonia is now concentrating on energy reductions in manufacturing.
Patagonia, which has an annual turnover of $280million (£140m) and has stores outside the US in five European countries, has been one of North America’s most high-profile corporate responsibility proponents, partly thanks to the views of its founder Yvon Chouinard, a mountaineer.
The company, which is owned by the privately held Lost Arrow Corporation, does not make clear whether the data it presents has been independently assured, nor does it produce a social responsibility report.
However it has been recognized as one of the first US companies to provide on-site day care, maternity and paternity leave, and flexitime. Another landmark decision was made in 1996, when it switched to organic cotton – only a fledgling industry at the time – and it has since introduced an apparel recycling program for many of its products.
California-based Patagonia, which specializes in outdoor and hiking gear, is giving details of the location of factories, the pros and cons of a product’s overall footprint, and videos of interviews with factory workers, farmers, third-party auditors and others. Feedback from site visitors is displayed in a public area.
The website uses maps and illustrations to show the amount of carbon dioxide generated per item, distance travelled, waste generated and energy consumed.
Each piece of data is also converted into more easily understood figures; for example, the energy used to make one pair of Patagonia’s Honeydew shoes is equivalent to leaving a fluorescent light bulb burning for 79 days.
Product profiles also give a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ point about each product. The company’s Eco Rain Shell Jacket, for instance, is made entirely of recycled components, but its water-repellent finish contains a synthetic chemical about which Patagonia has some concerns. Likewise material for the Wool 2 Crew jumper comes from sheep ranches in New Zealand with stringent environmental standards, but the the wool is transported 16,200 miles (26,066km).
Patagonia said the site showed its ‘determination to be candid and forthright’ about its impacts, in the hope that ‘customers will appreciate the company’s honesty and reward us for it’. Only ten products are featured so far, but Patagonia intends to expand this to cover more lines.
Jill Dumain, environmental programmes director, said the research required to set up the website had established that transport represents only one per cent of overall energy use.
‘Had we listened to the current media buzz touting transportation as the largest factor in energy consumption, we might have misplaced our efforts by making strides to geographically shorten our supply chain,’ she said. ‘That would have massively impacted our business financially and logistically and perhaps even affected product quality.’
Instead, said Dumain, Patagonia is now concentrating on energy reductions in manufacturing.
Patagonia, which has an annual turnover of $280million (£140m) and has stores outside the US in five European countries, has been one of North America’s most high-profile corporate responsibility proponents, partly thanks to the views of its founder Yvon Chouinard, a mountaineer.
The company, which is owned by the privately held Lost Arrow Corporation, does not make clear whether the data it presents has been independently assured, nor does it produce a social responsibility report.
However it has been recognized as one of the first US companies to provide on-site day care, maternity and paternity leave, and flexitime. Another landmark decision was made in 1996, when it switched to organic cotton – only a fledgling industry at the time – and it has since introduced an apparel recycling program for many of its products.
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