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that sources and makes all its products in the U.S.
“They consistently execute on those two core ideas
and don’t get caught up in the noise. This is effec-
tively what puts them in a class of their own.”
environmentAl Activism hAs been part of
Patagonia’s DNA since it was founded. It has do-
nated $100 million since 1985 to environmental
groups, including the Conservation Alliance, which
it helped found in 1989 and which works to protect
nature in America. It has been repairing customers’
clothes since the 1970s, and it operates one of the
largest apparel-repair centers in North America.
In 2013, it launched a venture-capital fund that
invests in startups that work on environmental is-
sues, such as Wild Idea Buffalo, which raises buf-
falo while aiming to restore grasslands to the Great
Plains, and Bureo, which converts discarded fishing
nets into consumer products like sun-
glasses. Patagonia “really walks the walk
and talks the talk,” said Richard Jaffe, an
independent retail consultant. “They in-
vest a lot of time and energy into being a
catalyst for change.”
It was the first company to make
fleece out of recycled bottles with
its synthetic chinchilla, or Synchilla,
fleeces. In 2005, it launched Worn
Wear, which sends employees to college
campuses and climbing centers, teaching
consumers how to repair things; the
company also mends customers’ clothes
in 72 repair centers globally. Customers
can mail in their used gear for store
credit, and in 2011, Patagonia ran an ad
in the New York Times telling customers
Don’T Buy This JackeT to discourage
overconsumption.
In 2012, Patagonia got into the food
business because the company decided
that the agricultural industry was in
need of improvement. Patagonia Pro-
visions now sells sustainably farmed
mussels from Spain; buffalo jerky made
from free-roaming grass-fed bison; and
Marcario’s favorite, tsampa dry soup
mix, made from organic barley grown
in Saskatchewan. Marcario says that in
20 years, Patagonia’s food business may
be bigger than its apparel business, as
consumers figure out how to recycle and
repair more of their clothing.
Patagonia was founded by Yvon
Chouinard, a California rock climber
who began selling climbing pitons he
forged in his parents’ backyard in the
late 1950s. It was Chouinard who per-
suaded Marcario to re-enter the busi-
ness world after she left it to question
the profit-first motives of the private
equity and tech companies where she
had previously worked. “It was just
kind of destiny,” she says about con-
necting with him in 2008.
Marcario knows that her job is
made easier by the fact that people
both young and old want Patagonia
products —even some people who dis-
agree with the company’s politics keep
buying its jackets and vests, she says.
But she’s not afraid to rethink the com-
pany’s business model as generational
attitudes toward shopping and con-
sumption shift. “This idea of rampant
consumerism is not really that attractive
to younger generations,” she says.
‘Rampant
consumerism
is not really
that attractive
to younger
generations.’
ROSE MARCARIO,
CEO of Patagonia
JEFF BROWN
