IN THE FACE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS, PATAGONIA PROPOSES FIVE STRATEGIES THAT CAN HELP US SAVE THE PLANET. THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY IS THE SECOND MOST POLLUTING INDUSTRY, HENCE THE URGENCY TO IMPLEMENT STRATEGIES IN IT THAT HELP MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE.

For Patagonia, founded by Yvon Chouinard in the 1970s in the mountains, one thing is not only self-evident but increasingly urgent: to lighten our environmental footprint, the textile industry and consumers must make fundamental changes; customers must demand better quality and think twice before buying and companies not only need to manufacture fewer things, but with greater responsibility.

Starting from the fact that the clothing industry generates a whopping 10% of global carbon emissions, for Patagonia companies must respond to the role they play in the genesis of the climate crisis, but what does it mean to make fundamental changes? How to take that abstract idea of ​​environmental responsibility and put it into practice? Even more precisely, how to drastically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions? How to bring the global economy to a transition that makes it one based on regeneration and not on extraction?

"We have a responsibility to act because our business and our community are affected by this crisis and because every part of our business contributes to the climate crisis," says Patagonia.

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These five strategies that Patagonia has implemented are an example of the changes that can be made both within companies in the textile industry and consumers.

One: stop using oil in clothing –their goal is to have no more virgin oil fibers by 2025– and only use materials such as organic and regenerative organic cotton, hemp, recycled polyester and recycled nylon -currently representing 87%- .

Two: implement clothing repair programs and encourage the consumption of used clothing. During 2017, some 11.2 million textiles ended up in a landfill. Patagonia has become one of the only companies in the world that sells new clothes alongside used clothes. Its Worn Wear program, launched in 2013, offers its customers clothing with 60% less emissions than new; During 2020 they repaired more than 71,000 garments. Buying a used garment extends its life by an average of 2.2 years, reducing your carbon, waste and water footprint by 73% (ThredUP, 2018); likewise, wearing a garment for 9 months plus can reduce the CO2 emissions of that product by 27%.

Three: bet not only on organic cotton, but Regenerative Organic. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, if we continue to farm conventionally, the world's topsoil, which produces almost all of our food, will be gone within 60 years. Regenerative Organic Agriculture is a holistic system, with high standards for the welfare of animals and workers. The production of regenerative crops, in rich and organic soils retain more nutrients; they thrive in fields with lots of trees, perennials, and living soils. These trees and plants stand out for reducing carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases that causes the climate crisis. Under what working conditions are the garments we buy manufactured so that they are so cheap?

Four: require that production processes have Fair Trade Certification. More than 40 million people around the world spend their days in factories, sewing garments for the textile industry. For the vast majority of these workers, the hours are long and the benefits non-existent. Garment workers are among the lowest paid people in the world. Since 2014, Patagonia has been manufacturing clothing with Fair Trade certification, which ensures better wages, employee participation in the community, and safeguards against the use of child labor.

Although Patagonia has other strategies, a fifth that should be mentioned is the implementation of production processes linked to local communities to solve specific problems. An example, his alliance with Bureo. According to a 2017 United Nations report, there are more than 51 trillion microplastic particles in the sea, more than 500 times the number of stars in the Milky Way. The most damaging of the plastic contributions to the ocean are discarded fishing nets, accounting for up to 10% of all plastic pollution. Faced with this situation, in 2016 Patagonia began working with Bureo to replace the virgin plastic used in the visors of the already classic trucker hats, replacing it with recycled plastic from abandoned fishing nets – a material that it called NetPlus and that it now uses in several products–, working hand in hand with fishermen from communities in Chile and Argentina.

To generate the least impact on the planet, Patagonia knows that it is impossible to do it alone. For the past nearly 50 years, Patagonia has been a company at the forefront of environmental activism, sustainable supply chains, and the defense of public lands and the great outdoors. But they are very clear, if we want to save the Planet, all companies in the world have to take climate change seriously enough and do the same.

More information in the following links:https://www.patagonia.com/es/climate-goals/https://www.patagonia.com/our-footprint/https://www.patagonia.com/core-values /