Patagonia makes some of the best outdoor clothing and gear available. I don't own much Patagonia because it is usually very expensive (although worth it).
I buy Patagonia when I can justify the expense in part because they are an environmentally sensitive manufacturer. Beyond direct environmental impact Patagonia factors social responsibility into the way they design and produce their products.
The Footprint Chronicles is an online record that allows customers to track the impact of selected Patagonia products from 'design through delivery'. We don't often consider the lasting environmental and social effects (the 'footprint') of what we buy. For example producing a Patagonia men's tee shirt;
- requires the energy to burn a 18 Watt compact fluorescent for 11 days (24 hours a day).
- requires the materials and finished product are shipped 7840 miles
- creates 3.5 pounds of CO2 (eight times the weight of the shirt)
- produces six ounces of waste (equivalent to the weight of the shirt itself.)
This seems like an awfully big footprint to me and does not factor in the water and fuel used to produce the fiber (organic cotton) dyes, inks etc. Even the relatively minor decision to buy a tee shirt has some really amazingly far-flung consequences. I have to give Patagonia credit for what looks like brutally honest reporting and wonder if I can find a tee shirt with a smaller footprint out there somewhere.
Scouting encourages us to consider our impact on the environment and consider the impact we have when camping. Calculating the total effect of our decisions as consumers has a similar and probably more significant role to play in preserving the environment and rings true as a basic Scouting value.
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