Patagonia and Organic Cotton: A Case Study








We decided to use "transitional" cotton temporarily as well as certified organic. Transitional cotton is grown using all the organic processes, but the practices haven't been in place long enough to earn official certification. Second, we decided that we would sell "clothing made from organically grown cotton" rather than "organic clothing." The difference seems small, but we didn't want to mislead buyers about the fact that we would still be using synthetic dyes and conventional cotton thread in the production. In the end, we put the quality back in the product construction. In some cases, we had to use a higher-quality, longer-staple cotton and pre-shrink the yarn and fabric.

To encourage others to use organic cotton and to help make organic cotton farming a sustainable business, we organized busloads of employees, journalists and representatives from other clothing companies to go to the Central Valley of California to see for themselves that "factory farming" isn't a metaphor, but a simple, stark description of a once-beautiful landscape. In the San Joaquin's cotton fields, for miles around no birds sing or insects hum; the air stinks, the eyes burn, toxins stain the irrigation ditches. Hired men with shotguns sit in lawn chairs by the "lakes" in order to scare off waterfowl and shorebirds before they land in the toxic soup.

We offered all of our information and discoveries to other apparel firms like Marks & Spencer, Timberland and Nike. We knew we weren't large enough to sustain organic farming by ourselves, and we didn't want to make our use of organics a selling point. Ideally, we hoped the entire industry would switch over just because it's the right thing to do.

Finally, we believed we had enough organic cotton farmers to make enough cotton to make enough clothes. But that wasn't the end of our worries. For a couple of seasons we watched the weather closely in the San Joaquin Valley. If our farmers' crops failed we were out of the sportswear business.

In the spring of 1996, our organically grown cotton sportswear line debuted. To our surprise, everything went fine. Not too many noticed the slight price increase on some clothing and those who did, applauded our choice.

Our organic cotton program is a success because our customers are making the same choice we made – to pay more now for organics rather than pay the hidden environmental costs down the road. It's also a success because our cotton clothing is carefully thought out, and as a consequence, it sells well. As of this year, there are more encouraging signs. Just as in the organic food industry, which is currently growing at a rate of 20 percent a year, the worldwide demand for organic cotton is booming; it has tripled since we first made the switch in 1996. The farmers, gins, spinners, weavers and cloth manufacturers who followed our lead have all created a new source of revenue for themselves. The costs of organic cotton have gone down to where it is on the average only two times more expensive than industrial grown, and more and more companies, encouraged by us, are switching over.

Switching from industrially grown and processed cotton to organically grown is a positive step forward, but doesn't completely solve the problem. Even when cotton is grown without toxic chemicals, it still uses an inordinate amount of water, and cannot be grown year after year without permanently depleting the soil. When a cotton garment is worn out, it is usually thrown away. We have to dig deeper and try to make products that close the loop – clothing that can be recycled infinitely into similar or equal products. We have to accept the responsibility for what happens to each product when it reaches the end of its life cycle, just as a computer manufacturer should be responsible for what happens to its old model computers that end up in landfills.

Some of the fiber mills we work with, at our prodding, are actively working on using less toxic materials and processes. They willingly work with us because they believe that what we are attempting to do is going to create a more sustainable business model for them and for society. They realize, as David Brower put it, that there is no business to be done on a dead planet.