At our regional office in Amsterdam, we worked with the other tenants in the building to convince the landlord to source 100 percent wind power for the building and are looking at investing in solar projects on farms in the nearby countryside. In Australia, we installed solar panels at our office and one of our retail stores, making up 25 percent of Patagonia Australia’s energy needs. To cover the rest of our electricity footprint there, we are looking at installing solar panels in a community north of Melbourne that lacks access to stable electricity And there are the solar-sharing efforts being undertaken by Patagonia Japan.
“We’re trying to use a similar model in each of the countries where we have an owned and operated footprint,” says Paul Hendricks, Patagonia’s senior manager of environmental responsibility. Where we can’t switch to renewable sources yet, we can balance our electricity footprint by investing in offsite renewable energy projects, particularly those that bring additional benefits to local communities.
Addressing Our Supply Chain
Switching our stores and offices to renewable energy is the easy part. To truly limit our emissions, we have to mitigate the overwhelming impact of our supply chain. Nearly 86 percent of Patagonia’s total carbon emissions come from the creation of the materials used in our products. To become carbon-neutral by 2025, we need to reduce and eliminate these emissions, and getting there requires multiple strategies.
Switching to recycled and renewable inputs is a big part of the solution, as is the development of low-emission dyeing techniques and biobased and biodegradable materials. To date, we’ve made significant progress on recycling the high-quality polyester and nylon we use in many of our best products. In 1993, Patagonia was the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to transform trash into fleece, and this fall, 69 percent of all materials used in Patagonia products will be recycled. By using recycled materials in this one season alone, we are reducing our carbon footprint by 20,000 tons of CO2e―that’s like taking 4,200 cars off the road for one year.
The clothing industry generates up to 10% of global emissions every year, contributing to the climate crisis. Patagonia is committed to lowering our impact and a big part of that is talking to our partners across the supply chain about switching to renewable energy sources. Smoke coming from industry in Hangzhou, China. Photo: Xia Yuan/Getty Images.