The End of Consumerism

At many tables yesterday, we went around person to person and gave thanks for what was given us this year. Each of us had a list: a new baby, love found, restored health, the stars that came out during the solar eclipse. At Patagonia, we give thanks for the planet, the only home we have where the whole of human history has taken place and where all of life is organized into a remarkable and precarious balance.

The “thanks” and the “giving” is easy to forget when Black Friday arrives and millions of us go out and buy things we may not need. Economists, government and Wall Street call us “consumers,” and the sad truth is that the world economy revolves around our consumption.

But the natural world and we, ourselves, can’t sustain this economy. Just one fact among many: between 1970 and 2012, more than half of the world’s wildlife was lost. The loss happened largely in poorer countries because their resources go to feed wealthy consuming countries. “Extinction,” as the journalist George Monbiot said, “is the bycatch of consumerism.” The consumption economy is destroying the natural world.

It’s also outdated and ineffective. “Capitalism has produced great wealth and helped lift hundreds of millions from poverty,” writes Stephen Heintz, the president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, “But it has also produced deep and growing inequality within many societies and eroded local cultures, traditions and livelihoods. Industrial capitalism, with its reliance on fossil fuels, has heated the planet nearly to a point of no return with potentially catastrophic consequences for all forms of life, and financial capitalism has pushed income and wealth inequality to levels not seen since the Gilded Age.”

The economy isn’t working: it’s not working for the planet and it’s not working for us. Says hedge fund founder Ray Dalio, “… for the bottom 60%, it’s a miserable economy.”

So, how about a different economy? We endorse an economic model that works within the limits of the natural world, including the limits imposed by climate change and diversity loss. We have to learn to live in a world where we don’t use any virgin materials. Out of this necessity, innovation is born. Right now, Patagonia is making clothing from recycled polyester and nylon (saving oil), recycled wool and recycled cashmere (saving grasslands from overgrazing from sheep and goats); we are making jackets filled with recycled down and t-shirts from recycled and organic cotton. Working with the Rodale Institute, Dr. Bronner’s and key allies, Patagonia created a new regenerative organic certification for agriculture (for both food and fiber) that increases organic soil matter, reduces water use and sequesters carbon.

Our goal is to make all of our products from 100% recycled, reclaimed or biobased content. “We have to take responsibility for what we make, from birth to death and then beyond death, back to rebirth,” says Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard.

Through our Worn Wear program, we encourage you to repair your clothes before you throw them away. The most beautiful clothing is designed by you—your life—every tear, stain and duct-taped hole.

A lot of the stuff we’re tempted to buy on Black Friday is made by people who aren’t making enough money to live. Jobs with dignity and meaningful work—and an end to cheap labor—must be part of the next economy. Nearly half of Patagonia’s clothing line is Fair Trade certified and every factory that makes our clothes is audited by an outside auditor and our own Corporate Responsibility team.

Many companies are doing the same, working hard to make clothes, furniture, appliances, cars—you name it—better, more efficient, less damaging, creating a new and vibrant economy that we and the earth can live with. As consumers, we have a lot of clout. Whatever our political affiliation, we can vote with our dollars on Black Friday. We can vote for the well-made, the long-lasting and the responsible. And leave the rest on the shelf.