Mirror, mirror on the wall, what is the greenest company of them all?
Most people already know the answer, Patagonia, but I suspect most don’t realize how green.
For starters, check out the Patagonia-founded One Percent for the Planet Initiative. In 2008, Patagonia, based in Ventura, Calif., and with an outlet store in Dillon, had $380 million in sales. One percent of it, $3.8 million, went to 398 environmental groups. That’s one percent of gross sales, not of net revenue or net profit – and every year. Since 1985, when the One Percent program started, Patagonia, a relatively small company on a global scale, has given $34 million to green causes.
“It’s actually a minimum of one percent,” notes Bill Klyn, Patagonia’s International Fishing Development Manager. (Now, there’s the job title of my dreams!)
That $3.8 million, Klyn noted, doesn’t include what employees give and money going into green issues from various corporate grant programs, which is “a lot.”
I’ve always wondered if Patagonia considered its famous green giving program a challenge to other companies to do the same, and when I had a chance to ask Patagonia owner and founder Yvon Chouinard that question, he had a simple, direct answer that you don’t often receive from CEOs: “Yes. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
“If we turn to a green economy, will it bankrupt the world? No. I’m saying to other companies that every time we did the right thing for the planet, we made money on it,” Chouinard elaborated. “I’m telling them that not only do we have to change, but also that it will be a good thing economically. Otherwise, they’ll end up like GM, part of a bankrupt economy.”
Since it works so well for Patagonia, a fact well known in corporate America, why don’t more join or initiate green causes?
Chouinard and I spent most of our phone conversation speculating on the reasons, but we couldn’t answer that question. It’s definitely frustrating to him. “I just don’t understand; they are so afraid of change.”
And not just multinational conglomerates, but also the outdoor industry.
“We have about 1,300 members now,” Chouinard said, “but very few are from the outdoor industry. You’d think that a company that’s livelihood depends on having a clean planet would feel more responsibility to protect it, but the outdoor industry is not stepping up.”
Which means Patagonia is still the biggest One Percent company. New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colo., brewer of Fat Tire Amber Ale, is probably the next biggest business behind Patagonia.
But not one Fortune 500 company. That hurts, doesn’t it?
Let’s assume (dream?) for a second about even a few Fortune 500 companies accepting Patagonia’s challenge. How about Goldman Sachs, for example, with $48 billon annual revenue, or Microsoft with $57 billion, or the biggest company, ExxonMobil, which rakes in a staggering $305 billon annually.
Discounting the other 497 Fortune 500 companies, if these three companies took the challenge, $4 billion annually could go into green causes. That would make a mark!
And people would notice, according to Klyn, who calls One Percent giving “a great marketing expense.” Energy giants like ExxonMobil are constantly criticized for gouging us at the pump and catastrophic oil spills, so becoming a One Percent company might help people forget about the Valdez next time they’re looking for a gas station.
The problem is, Chouinard and I speculated, these large companies are publicly traded. Executives prioritize keeping the stock price up over all other priorities except, perhaps, compensation.
“Publicly traded companies hardly give any money to environmental causes,” Chouinard pointed out.
Only small private companies mostly from non-outdoor industries have joined the One Percent program, which is a sad commentary, and “no company gives more than Patagonia,” Chouinard pointed out.
Here are a few more of Patagonia’s favorite programs:
Freedom to Roam: Patagonia’s priority environmental campaign. Its goal is to create, restore and protect “wildways” or corridors between habitats so animals can survive.
World Trout Initiative: A program to identify individuals and groups working to protect native fish, to tell their story, and to support their conservation efforts by placing money into their hands.
Conservacion Patagonica: An effort by the company and its employees to create a new national park in (where else?) Patagonia, Chile, the company’s namesake.
The Conservation Alliance: An environmental grant program founded by Patagonia in 1989.
Common Threads: A garment recycling program where certain fabrics can be returned to the company for recycling.
Organic Exchange: A non-profit organization committed to expanding organic agriculture.
Beaten to a Pulp: A campaign to encourage use of recycled materials in catalogs.
That’s only a sampling of how and why Patagonia became the greenest company of them all. Go to the company’s Web site to see a complete list.
I realize Patagonia isn’t the only company giving money to green causes. Others do, too, but none with the vigor Patagonia does. Even a few of the “large caps” deciding to give anywhere near the percentage Patagonia does would be a tectonic leap forward for our efforts to make our planet a healthier place for our grandchildren.