A quick interweb heads up for you - Yvon Chouinard, the legendary
American climber who invented the curved-pick ice axe and founded
clothing giants Patagonia has written a book and you can read
extracts online now.
The extended extract on American outdoors site outsidemag.com
is the story of how Chouinard managed to reconcile his role as a
business man with the environmental and ethical concerns that are
fundamental to him.
Starting with his 'MBA theory of management - management by
absence' he became determined to 'create an entirely new kind of
company'.
'I wanted to make sure every employee at Patagonia understood our
business and environmental ethics,' he says.
The guidelines he came up with then are still in use today.
Packaging of Patagonia products, for example, is as ecologically
aware as possible with items like baselayers being bundled with a
rubber band rather than encased in plastic, for example.
In 1996 the company pledged to give one per-cent of its profits to
environmental causes and in 2001 Chouinard started '1 % for the
Planet' an alliance of 148 companies pledged to do the same.
An interesting read about the founder of one of our favourite
companies. See outsidemag.com
