The Footprint Chronicles: Transparency Means A Greener Future

In an era where green is gold, and most outdoor companies are jockeying to dominate with their own sustainability story, Patagonia is doing something crazy: they’re actually letting YOU, the consumer, see where their products come from without the typical marketing filter that so often only reports on a company’s good green news.

Recently, I spoke with Jill Dumain, Director of Environmental Analysis for Patagonia. Essentially, Jill’s job is to look at the decisions Patagonia makes as a corporation from the vantage of an environmental perspective. Often considered a leader in the sustainability movement in the outdoor industry, Patagonia is looking to double down on their green reputation by adopting a policy of greater transparency, minus any green spin, with regard to how their products are produced. As Dumain says, “any company in the green business, who is only telling you the good green message, isn’t telling you the whole story.”

To coincide with Earth Day, 2009 Patagonia has revamped its consumer aimed corporate transparency program, called The Footprint Chronicles. Accessed via the web, The Footprint Chronicles gives consumers an online portal to track specific Patagonia products from source to sale, and measure them with regard to their environmental impact. Click on a specific product, and a map pops up, showing where each product originates as well as its pre-market lifespan. Environmental impact for each garment is measured in terms of a garment’s, well, footprint. Distance traveled, CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and waste generated are the four criteria by which a product is judged. From this data, a conclusion regarding what’s good and bad for each product is reached, as well as Patagonia’s take on how to make improvements over time, and what problems the company sees with the industry as it stands, from supply to market.

Essentially, though not necessarily their intention, Patagonia is effectively throwing down the green gauntlet in the outdoor apparel industry. Banking on the belief that knowledge and transparency, even when the environmental impact news is bad, is more valuable to its consumer than green hype, Patagonia is exposing itself to a deeper level of scrutiny than any other major player in the outdoor game. As Dumain says, “It’s more risky to let people think that it [the green product] is the end of the story, rather than the beginning.”

At inception, the sales force at Patagonia was a little nervous about The Footprint Chronicles. Dumain remembers the sales team saying, “could we encourage people to buy stuff, rather than tell them what’s wrong?” But soon, the sales team was onboard after seeing the reaction from Patagonia’s clients. Ultimately, The Footprint Chronicles gave the sales team a sense of empowerment and autonomy, devoid of censorship or marketing hype that helped them to do a better job. Cutting to the core, I asked Dumain if she felt she could truly do her work without being censored. The only feedback she would receive from her boss, VP of Environmental Initiatives Rick Ridgeway, was when content coming out of the program looked too marketing oriented, and not environmentally transparent enough, which essentially translates to Dumain having the ability to remain objective whether the news is good or bad, environmentally speaking. As she says, “Patagonia needs to take responsibility for these things in the supply chain because Patagonia’s directing them.”

Perhaps one of the greatest luxuries Patagonia enjoys comes from the fact that they’re not a publicly traded company. This allows them the ability to take risks that companies beholden to shareholders can not. But ultimately, if Patagonia can pave the way and show the public that being sustainable, or actively working to that end is something that translates into business, then that will affect industry wide change towards a greener future. As Dumain puts it, “transparency gives media new questions to ask. It gets journalists and outdoor enthusiasts better questions to pose to us, and forces our hand to keep going, it’s about conversation, not confrontation.”

To learn more about The Footprint Chronicles click here.