Patagonia Tells You Where Clothes Come From

Wednesday, 17 October 2007

What if before you bought something, you could see where the materials came from, how and where it was made and the path it takes to get to you? While that may be a ways off, Patagonia has created a little Flash site called The Footprint Chronicles that explains the environmental pros and cons of some of their clothing. Already well-known for their success as a green business, they are still pushing the boundaries by publishing the real impact of their clothing.

While only 5 products from different categories are listed, from a jacket to shoes, the information about each is definitely useful. Using a map, it shows you the travel path required to make a piece of clothing and comments about each destination along the way. Additionally, the total distance traveled, CO₂ emissions, waste generated and energy consumption is listed with simple comparisons to make the numbers more meaningful.

Definitely Patagonia is onto something that is useful and fits their target audience, but I wonder if it actually encourages people to buy at all. Looking at some of the numbers, it makes me want to stick to used clothing! If anything, I commend them on their transparency and guts; both are needed from more companies around the world.

Via TreeHugger

Comments (2)

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Cotton isn't all that green, you know.
written by Leisureguy , October 18, 2007

[b]Take a look[/b]. From that link:

Take cotton. Everyone thinks it’s the good guy. Yet cotton cultivation accounts for around 10 per cent of all pesticides and 20 per cent of all insecticides used in agriculture. And it’s not just the manufacture of clothing that’s environmentally unfriendly; it’s the upkeep and disposal of clothes too.

More at the link.

Re: Cotton isn't all that green, you kno
written by Rob , October 22, 2007

Granted; but ...

... if you read their website (or even the image from the top of this page) you'll see that they've been using organic cotton for their polo shirts since 1996 - although unfortunately it is from the other side of the world, and correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the US produce quite a lot of cotton? Probably has people that can sew too?

I agree; hats off to them for publishing this info, but it is frightening. I can't think why they think this will make people want to buy their goods, but maybe if everyone else was as transparent and then they were shown to be the best (unlikely?) then that would generate custom. If it was shown to influence consumer behaviour then they'd all start to compete to reduce their impact, and then maybe we'll start getting somewhere.

So well done Patagonia and good luck.

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