This weeks’ assignment is to determine if Patagonia is a socially responsible retailer. We need to define what is Corporate Social Responsibility? Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is “a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable—to itself, its stakeholders, and the public” (Fernando, 2021). CSR companies are conscious of the impact they are having on all aspects of society, including economic, social, and environmental. A corporate responsible company is accountable to itself and its shareholders by setting standards of ethical behavior for its peers, competition and its industry.

Patagonia does not make its own clothing, nor does it own any of the factories. “When considering new factories, or evaluating current ones, we take a fourfold vetting approach—one that considers social and environmental practices equally with quality standards and business requirements like financial stability, adequate capacity and fair pricing” (Patagonia, n.d.). The company has a veto process that allows them to decide if they do not want to work with factories that do not follow their guidelines and beliefs. “This practice is rare in the apparel business and keeps us out of factories that don’t share our social and environmental values. We have also trained our Sourcing and Supply Planning teams in responsible purchasing practices to minimize any negative impact on the factory workers and the environment that could result from our business decisions” (Patagonia). They, Patagonia, will not work with any factory that they are not allowed to visit. In 1996, Patagonia was invited to take part in the No Sweat Initiative. After learning even more about various factories and how people were treated, the company “became founding members of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), an independent multi-stakeholder verification and training organization that audits our factories” (Patagonia).

Patagonia decided, as time progressed, that what they were doing just wasn’t enough and they wanted to do more as a company. In 2007, Patagonia launched “The Footprint Chronicles®, which traces the social and environmental impact of our products.
We ask Verité, an international nonprofit social-auditing, training and capacity-building organization, to train the 75 employees who visit our suppliers’ factories to fully understand Patagonia’s Workplace Code of Conduct” (Patagonia). Taking it even a step further, the company conducts internal refresher courses annually for all employees – new and seasoned.

“Most if not all global apparel manufacturers exploit workers abroad, not only at companies that produce cheap or low-quality goods. And evidence of forced labor doesn’t mean that a company is being willfully negligent. Patagonia’s admission stands out in that it comes from a brand considered a leader in the movement for ethical production, demonstrating the enormity, and the difficulty, of the task of protecting workers in massive, fractured supply chains” (White, 2015). According to Adam Fetcher, global director of Patagonia’s PR, “‘We quite frankly discovered modern slavery in our supply chain.’ He adds that the problem is pervasive and plagues manufacturers of all kinds in many industries. ‘For Patagonia, it became an urgent priority to fix it,’ he says” (Hensel, 2015). In fact, Patagonia spends time and money on billing itself as a “sustainable, environmentally-friendly brand. In 2011, the company slapped its anti-consumerism “Don’t Buy This Jacket” advertisements all over the U.S.–effectively suggesting people not buy its products” (Hensel, 2015). In other words, Patagonia made the choice to consider others over its bottom line.

In 2012, Patagonia reviews their raw material suppliers and an internal audit finds that “labor brokers charge foreign migrant workers from Asian countries up to $7,000 to get a job in Taiwanese fabric mills” (Patagonia). Patagonia deems this unacceptable as they fear this can lead workers into forced labor and debt. To stop this practice, they decided more changes need to be made. The company decides to partake in a multi-stakeholder discussion on the living wages. The leadership team “sees living wage as a company priority and as a result we begin looking at Fair Trade as a first step to getting money to workers” (Patagonia). “In attempting to monitor and improve the treatment of its second-tier-factory workers, Patagonia is going far beyond that standard” (White, 2015). Patagonia could have chose to look away, but instead the company knowingly made a choice to stand up and make the necessary changes to be responsible for actions of others – that’s called corporate social responsibility.

My personal opinion is that yes, Patagonia is a corporate social responsible retailer, and definitely “Green for the Environment”. Patagonia puts people and community over profits. “By acknowledging its mistakes to customers, Patagonia has proven that its commitment to social issues doesn’t just start and end in the store” (Hensel, 2015).

Thanks again for reading. This is my last class blog – kind of weird, but in a good way! Keep in touch,

Fernando, Jason. (2021, September 4). “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).” Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corp-social-responsibility.asp
Hensel, Anna. (2015, June 3). “What Patagonia Did When It Found Human Slaves in Its Supply Chain.” Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/anna-hensel/patagonia-pledges-to-implement-higher-standards-in-factories.html
Patagonia. (n.d.). “Corporate and Social Responsibility History.” Retrieved from https://www.patagonia.com/our-footprint/corporate-social-responsibility-history.
White, Gillian B. (2015, June 3). “All Your Clothes are Made with Exploited Labor.” Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/patagonia-labor-clothing-factory-exploitation/394658