Taking a Stand: Patagonia’s Take on Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR strategies are changing in response to the rise of social media, the realization that activism must be intersectional, and the decline of social trust. Companies are going against traditional recommendations for CSR best practices. In this multi-part series, we focus on Patagonia to show how:
On September 4, 2020, Patagonia issued an acknowledgement and apology on Facebook, Twitter, and its homepage that read: “The Black Lives Matter movement has forced a reckoning of the deep racial injustice around us and laid bare our complicity. We are a white-led outdoor company reliant on recreation on stolen Native lands that are not yet safe for all. Recent months have revealed how much more we need to do to live up to our values as an activist company.” The post went on to state that Patagonia must confront its “lack of progress and take full ownership of the legacy of our failures” as well as begin the difficult work of becoming an anti-racist company, which is work that will never be done.
This marks another big step in Patagonia’s CSR efforts that finally blends together environmentalism, race, equity, and inclusion. This post is the first in a series that takes Patagonia — a company repeatedly touted as a CSR leader — as a case study to chart changes to corporate social responsibility efforts (CSR) (the corporate commitment to improve societal well-being through discretionary business practices and corporate contributions) and explore best practices.
Before co-author, Veronica R. Dawson, and I discuss this most recent initiative in depth, we want to go back a few years to the post that, in some ways, likely impacted the company’s most recent turn.
“The President Stole Your Land” campaign was Patagonia’s first distinct foray into the political arena and it had diverse impacts, including backlash for asserting that President Trump was stealing “your” lands since the lands being protected had already been stolen…from the Hopi, Diné, Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni peoples. In this piece, we analyze the ways the efforts responded to the mediascape and political environment at the time and, in our forthcoming piece, will explore how their most recent initiative responds to the political climate today.
Two factors pivotally changed the landscape for businesses seeking to engage in CSR in 2017. The first is the pervasiveness of social media, which opens up communication to large and unintended audiences. Whereas previously companies could direct their CSR messaging at a somewhat discrete group of stakeholders, doing so today is largely impossible given the wildness of social media networks and the inability to control how a message moves. The second factor is the rapid decline of social trust in the US. People are skeptical of their government, corporations, and each other, which means that they are also skeptical of their public communication. As a result, people are more likely to see CSR efforts as a ploy to get more business, especially given the increase in greenwashing and social justice-washing.
So what are companies to do? How can they respond to these dilemmas? Patagonia chose a provocative approach.
On Monday, December 4, 2017, Patagonia changed its homepage to a black background with white lettering that simply read: “The President Stole Your Land.” The same message was posted on its social media accounts, thereby entering the wild public networks of social media.
A short explanation followed that read: “In an illegal move, the president just reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. This is the largest elimination of public lands in American history” along with a button to click to take action.
An eruption of varied responses ensued. Why? Because Patagonia stepped into the political realm in a very public and provocative way. On purpose. Against CSR best practices. It was risking business to show commitment to a social cause. In so doing, it was making one thing clear: publicly pronouncing its commitment to protecting the environment was more important than pleasing all of its stakeholders. Companies like Nike, REI, The North Face, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Airbnb have joined Patagonia in crafting a new way to be socially responsible — by taking a political stance.
The year Patagonia began this initiative, a Harvard Business Review article cautioned companies from taking on any social cause that is too politically controversial for a risk of alienating customers. But, in an era of decreased social trust, CSR activities must get their hands dirty, so to speak, by entering directly into political controversies, including gun control, civil rights (BLM), environmental preservation, and immigration.
With customers being more likely to support socially engaged companies, CSR efforts have intensified. But while socially responsible companies claim to reap the benefits of Millennial and GenZ patronage, the truth is that CSR activities lead to a paradox of social cost. Socially responsible companies do as well or even outperform less CSR focused competitors, which in turn opens them to criticism. How can a company that proclaims itself to be “for” the environment be ok with profiting from increased consumption that degrades the environment?
This paradox of social cost is repeatedly evident in Patagonia’s initiatives. For example, on Black Friday 2012 the company published a now famous ad in The New York Times, which implored consumers not to buy the company’s jackets — one of Patagonia’s staple products. Profits increased significantly in the year after the ad ran, opening Patagonia up to critique that the company was profiting off consumption while promoting conservation. In fact, in just ten years, Patagonia increased its profits four-fold, all the while proclaiming itself to be an environmentalist company.
Does this mean Patagonia is lying to its customers? Greenwashing in order to increase profits? In order to answer this question, we need to look at Patagonia’s CSR efforts in more detail.
Patagonia is not new to corporate social responsibility (CSR). It has been at the core of the company’s mission ever since Yvonne Chouinard started it out of the back of his car while traveling around Wyoming, the Alps, and Yosemite. Chouinard’s approach to CSR was quite unconventional. His first catalogue included a diatribe against climbers — the very people he was targeting as consumers — for not recognizing the impact their sport had on the environment. He wanted to make the people venturing into outdoor spaces more conscientious in the hopes that they might adopt better practices.
Over the ensuing years, Patagonia enacted CSR efforts in a variety of ways that, for the most part, adhered to the basic tenets of CSR: sustainability, accountability, and transparency. The company donated to environmental organizations, greened their production practices by using recycled materials, and even made a series of documentaries. All of these followed traditional guidelines for practicing CSR, including promoting more “feel good” initiatives and generally avoiding the political arena, which can be dangerous for companies.
“The President Stole Your Land” social media initiative took a markedly different turn, violating one of the most important tenets — remaining apolitical by engaging directly with politics during a particularly politically polarized time. It alienated and offended certain customers. It fueled angry conversations. Exchanges spun off, debates proliferated, and mainstream media started picking up the story. But this was the point. It was the initiative that represented Patagonia’s new mission statement: “We’re In Business To Save Our Home Planet.”
By moving off its homepage and launching this campaign onto the wild networks of social media, the initiative responded to both the need to engage stakeholders on social media and the need to make a bold statement to indicate they are not just greenwashing. Patagonia stepped in as a corporation with influence to assist in efforts during a time when citizen groups are being ignored. How did the company do it? And will they need to change their tactics in the effort to become and antiracist company? Veronica Dawson and I break down the strategies in our follow up piece here.
