Customers purchasing Patagonia outdoor clothing, like Synchilla fleece vests and rain shells, can now track the social and environmental impacts of those products online.
Patagonia is the first major apparel manufacturer to actively expose these impacts, using an interactive website called The Footprint Chronicles. The site sets a precedent for corporate transparency, revealing to consumers the good and the bad involved in manufacturing outdoor clothing.
Patagonia said it is determined to be candid and forthright about its impact on the environment and created the site to encourage dialog with its customers, who are concerned about the environment.
"We believe that to avoid complacency, we must constantly examine our internal processes to improve upon the positive and mitigate the negative," said Casey Sheahan, president and CEO of Patagonia. "The Footprint Chronicles allows us to do this publicly–sort of learning out loud."
Each season the site will examine new products, beginning with five on Earth Day, 2008.
"Our customers are scientists, activists, professors, doctors and more–they have the collective experience and knowledge we’re looking for," said Sheahan. "We’re highlighting exactly what happens in the manufacturing process and asking customers for their suggestions and help in efforts to find solutions to our less sustainable practices."
According to Jill Dumain, Patagonia’s director of environmental programs, the research involved in developing the Chronicles has already driven major business decisions at Patagonia.
"The Chronicles revealed that transportation makes up only about 1 percent of our overall energy use," said Dumain. "Had we listened to the current media buzz touting transportation as the largest factor in energy consumption, we might have greatly misplaced our efforts by making strides to geographically shorten our supply chain–which would have massively impacted our business financially, logistically and perhaps even effected product quality."
The Footprint Chronicles includes more than 35 filmed interviews and slideshows of factory workers, farmers, owners, designers and third-party auditors.
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