Patagonia: The lighthouse effect - 21 Jul 2007
Twice a year for the past 3 years at Tradeshows such as this, I meet for an hour with Hervé Chabert, Patagonia’s European General Manager. We even manage to run into each other at different eco-events around Europe as he does quite a lot of speaking at conferences on Planet and Climate related issues.
When I first dreamt up Laneo a few years ago, the very first brand I thought about was Patagonia. When you create something, you need some form of perspective. A starting point essentially, and ultimately a direction. To put it visually, Laneo was setting out to sea and Patagonia was the only “lighthouse” we could see at the time.
On Patagonia’s website resides the following statement for all to read:
“Everything we do pollutes or taxes the Earth in some way. It’s a sad and inescapable fact. But there are things we can do as individuals and businesses to lighten our impact on the environment, such as buying and throwing away less, reusing products whenever possible, and recycling everything we can.”
“We realize that our efforts are far from perfect, but we’re trying and making headway. We currently use the following e-fibers – environmentally friendlier fibers – in a number of our products. They include recycled and recyclable polyester, organic cotton, hemp, organic wool and chlorine-free wool.”
To me, that’s pretty darn good and I think they’ve proved themselves over and over to be leaders, not followers in environmental protection.
Today Hervé and I talked about eco-certification processes and the manufacturing chain. As always, our discussion was rich and enlightening. Eventually our talk turned to Patagonia’s recycling program called, “Common Threads Garment Recycling” a program where you turn in your old Capilene based clothing and Patagonia makes new clothing out of it.
Of course, there have been other customer oriented recycling programs around the world in the past, but most have died off. With the recent rise in ecological awareness, there are some new ones sprouting up today, but because of lacking customer support many of them are facing a very hard uphill battle.
This is where Laneo is positioning itself to play a major role. I want us to help these companies run their recycling programs (amongst other things) by providing them with access to a broad based interactive community, eco-intelligent logistics and customer feedback initiatives.
Way too much of what is made these days ends up in the trash and one of Laneo’s many goals is to change that. Just as Patagonia was the lighthouse that guided Laneo’s quest out to sea. Laneo hopes to one day be the lighthouse that guides outdoor sport manufacturers in their quest for material reclamation initiatives.
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