It’s no secret that barley & birch, as a whole, loves Patagonia. I am not sure we have ever explained why though, beyond just “Patagonia… *drool*… they are our heroes.” Essentially, Patagonia is everything that barley&birch strives to be.

It’s true. There is little difference between a teenage girl’s reaction to Justin Bieber and Kyle’s reaction to Yvon Chouniard, found of Patagonia. Every 85984509 times that she has seen the below commercial, she slams closed her laptop, stares, and gets butterflies. (I wish I were exaggerating here.)

Please watch now.

Some history behind the company and founder:

Yvon Chouinard was a climber. When he started climbing, the only pitons available were soft iron, which were placed once and left it the rock. (Major climbs require hundreds of placements.) So then, in 1957, Mr. Chouinard decided to make his own re-usable hardware and  went to a junkyard and bought a used coal-fired forge, a 138-pound anvil, some tongs and hammers, and started teaching himself how to blacksmith. Then he “built a small shop in his parents’ backyard in Burbank. Most of his tools were portable, so he could load up his car and travel the California coast from Big Sur to San Diego, surfing. After a session, he would haul his anvil down to the beach and cut out angle pitons with a cold chisel and hammer before moving on.” (From Patagonia’s site.)

By 1965, there was enough of a demand that Chouinard had to stop making the equipment by hand and begin using machinery. By 1970, Chouinard Equipment had become the largest supplier of climbing hardware in the U.S.

Patagonia then began making clothes for climbers, etc. and grew into the company that it is today.

More reasons that we are obsessed with them as a company:

Patagonia believes that everyone that works there should be a friend that can dress how they want. Patagonia has never had private offices, but rather several large shared, open buildings. The company sponsors ski and surf trips. In 1984 they opened a cafeteria that serves mostly vegetarian food and started an on-site child care program.

In 1988, Patagonia started in first  national environmental campaign on behalf of an alternative master plan to deurbanize the Yosemite Valley. The company has undertaken a major education campaign on an environmental issue every year since.

(If you are only minorly impressed at this point, you should re-read the above years or read their full history on their website here. They are insanely ahead of the curve here. )

They are also our corporate standards hero. From their site:

“We also, early on, began initial steps to reduce our own role as a corporate polluter: we have been using recycled-content paper for our catalogs since the mid-eighties. We worked with Malden Mills to develop recycled polyester for use in our Synchilla fleece.

Our distribution center in Reno, opened in 1996, achieved a 60% reduction in energy use through solar-tracking skylights and radiant heating; we used recycled content for everything from rebar to carpet to the partitions between urinals. We retrofitted lighting systems in existing stores, and build-outs for new stores became increasingly environmentally friendly. We assessed the dyes we used and eliminated colors from the line that required the use of toxic metals and sulfides. Most importantly, since the early nineties, we have made environmental responsibility a key element of everyone’s job.”

Chouinard founded 1% For The Planet (a group of which we are a proud member) and the company has been buying land and turning it into protected areas for decades. They do this simply because its the right thing to do, and not as a large press stunt (like many of us see companies do daily.)

Patagonia is an amazing brand. To us, they are the example of what a company that stays profitable by making quality products can do for the world. We at barley & birch never cease to be amazed at Patagonia’s work and their activism. They, like barley&birch, are trying to send a message that you can be business that works hard for social and environmental causes not as a marketing gimmick but because that is how you believe business should be done.

In a recent interview, Chouinard really reiterated a lot of concepts that we work hard to embody. Check it out here. As Chouinard perfectly articulates, “I want to send a message that it’s good business to make a great product, and do it with the least amount of damage to the planet. If Patagonia wasn’t profitable or successful, we’d be an environmental organization.” EXACTLY our thoughts.

Thank you, Yvon Chouinard and everyone at Patagonia, for inspiring us with your business every single day. (No, really.) You’ve created a business model that we hope will inspire businesses of the future as well.