About the author : Daniel Griffith
Daniel is an Author, Designer, and Entrepreneur. With over 10 years of industry experience, Daniel utilizes his unique blend of mathematics and poetry, engineering and creative thinking to solve both technical and business challenges to ultimately co-create the world he wants to live in.
Black Friday, 2011. It is a date remembered by most as the First Friday in what has grown to be one of the principal consumerism blitzes of our consumerism era. It is a time when people trample other people in the name of bigger TVs, discounted PlayStations, and outdoor meat smokers. We need more gadgets to build more community around; damn the person next to me.
“Because Patagonia wants to be in business for a good long time—and leave a world inhabitable for our kids—…,” read baffled consumers of The New York Times, “…we want to do the opposite of every other business today.”
Patagonia was founded by surfers and mountain climbers who cared deeply about the environment. They formed a company around the consumerism-shaking idea that one coat will do and it should last you a lifetime—or you could return it and they would fix it up and resell it at discount. Repurpose; reuse; resell.
Their mission is to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” That is not their mission statement. That is the statement which describes their mission. In a world plagued with taglines and BS marketing tactics, there is a difference and it is serious.
“We ask you to buy less and reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else,” continued their New York Times campaign.
Translated, Patagonia, a clothing company that makes money only when you buy their jackets, spent marketing dollars to ask consumers to stop and consider not buying their jackets. The campaign was titled, “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” They didn’t offer sales or discounts like every other store. They offered quality jackets made by quality craftsmen and women that should be purchased by only those who really needed them.
Why?
Regenerative organization co-create the world they want to live in and, regardless of bottom lines, cash-flow, or needless economic drivers of the modern business system, they do it because tomorrow is just as important as today; perhaps more important. They do it because their mission is more important than their mission statement and they do it because their story is lasting change, not “loose change.”