Patagonia as a Business Experiment

Chouinard founded Patagonia in 1973 as an outdoor-clothing company. It became known for durable products and for using business decisions, catalog essays, grants, and campaigns to connect outdoor recreation with environmental responsibility.

The model contains an unavoidable tension: manufacturing and selling apparel consumes resources even when materials and practices improve. Patagonia’s approach has been to expose and work on that tension—encouraging repair and longer use while supporting activism—rather than presenting the company as environmentally neutral.