Patagonia: Leadership in Sustainable Manufacturing
I’m on the board of advisors for the Clean Business Investment Summit (CBIS), held each year in August, linking the very best business plans with the hungriest investors. I just got back from a meeting in which we discussed keynote speakers, and, of course, the names of the top people at Patagonia came up. Fortunately, some of them are “friends of friends,” and so I think there is a reasonable chance that this will work.
If you happen not to be familiar with the incredible leadership that these folks have shown in sustainable manufacturing, I hope you’ll check out the video I linked here.
There’s a lot that could be done to improve sustainability.
One of my pet peeves is electronic and electrical equipment that either cannot be repaired or costs so much to repair that it makes more sense to throw it away. I had a Sears washing machine on which the timer failed. Actually, it was only one pair
of contacts in the timer which failed. However, the timer was designed in such a way that it could not be repaired. There were two choices: 1) Buy a new timer for $350 because a pair of contacts, worth probably no more than a couple dollars, had failed, or 2) buy a new washing machine. Surely that was a good example of irresponsible design. Most of us could cite many examples.
Here is another example of waste that reduces sustainability.
How many people, when grocery shopping, use their own bags? I’ve been doing so for years. Even though the supermarket at which I do most of my grocery shopping provides a discount to shoppers who provide their own bags, very few shoppers do provide their own bags.
Then, there is the wasteful use of packaging material. When shopping, note the shapes of the containers. Breakfast cereals come in very wide and shallow boxes. If the boxes were cubed shaped, or at least narrower and deeper, less packaging material would be required. Lotions, shampoos, and other items come in containers which are not shaped to minimize the amount of plastic required. Have you noticed how much cardboard and plastic, and how many pins are used to package a new shirt? The list goes on and on.