news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Photo courtesy of the interview

Patagonia is "going viral". Its strong outdoor style, its insistence on protecting nature, and its practical temperament of durability and comfort make it "cool" in the eyes of young people today. Patagonia pursues the ultimate environmental protection and seems to be the best business representative of the ESG spirit. However, during the two hours we chatted with Zeng Weigang, the head of Patagonia in mainland China, he never mentioned the concept of ESG.

Interview | Su Jianxun, Lü Yaning

Text | Lv Yaning

Editor | Su Jianxun

What would a company that pursues sustainability to the extreme do? The answer is:Donate yourself to the earth。

The American outdoor brand Patagonia did just that. In September 2022, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard announced that he would "donate the company to the Earth," meaning he would give up ownership of the company and hand it over to trusts and nonprofit organizations, with profits to be used to combat the climate crisis.

You can hardly find a company more anti-business than Patagonia.

Patagonia does not advertise, never participates in shopping festival promotions, and even called on people not to consume on Singles' Day. It also does not open many stores. After 19 years in China, it has only opened 6 stores. It even "selects" its customers. Its founder said that it had rejected group purchase orders from Wall Street companies.

As a business media, we have a lot of curiosity about Patagonia. In July, we finally made an appointment with Zeng Weigang, the head of Patagonia in mainland China, to meet and talk at Patagonia's Sanlitun store in Beijing.

We sat around a camping table, which is an area of ​​the store used for community activities. Behind Zeng Weigang, there is a studio called "Wanxiu Repair Workshop", which is full of needles and thread, repair tools and equipment. During the chat, we kept seeing customers coming with backpacks or clothes for repair.

The repair workshop in the store. Source: Photo by the author

This is what Patagonia will initiate in every store“Worn Wear”The project encourages customers not to buy new clothes to follow fashion, but to extend the life of old clothes and truly make the best use of them.

Zeng Weigang told us that there was an old man in the United States who wore a pair of Patagonia surf shorts for 25 years by mending them, and the cost of each wear was only one cent.

From the perspective of common business logic, if customers only repair but do not buy, the merchant's income will be reduced, but Patagonia encourages such behavior. In Zeng Weigang's impression, the headquarters rarely asked him about his income, butCare about customer portraits and how to communicate with consumers。

This also explains why Patagonia has only 6 stores in mainland China. Luckin Coffee can open thousands of stores a year, but Patagonia needs to conduct a long investigation of the city site to open a store.

Zeng Weigang told 36Carbon that before opening a store, he would take a walk around the local area. He didn't care how high the economic growth rate of a city was, but rather whether there was the outdoor community that Patagonia wanted to find.

Patagonia's penetration of the concept of "sustainability" is also affecting its supply chain. Patagonia not only gives priority to the use of renewable materials, but also gives up the "exclusive right to use" of material suppliers, encouraging them to open up to more brands, thereby promoting the environmental transformation of the entire clothing industry.

However, such a company that is born with environmental protection genes does not have a dedicated ESG or CSR department.

Talking about the company's ESG department, Zeng Weigang compared it to"Military Chaplain"。

This is not a compliment: when a company does something wrong, it goes to the priest to confess, and after confession it continues to do the wrong thing, and the cycle continues.

In Zeng Weigang's view, the main motivation for most companies to promote ESG is compliance or to obtain lower financing costs, which ultimately leads to unlimited business growth. He is very skeptical about the logic behind this path, which is still a manifestation of being coerced by capitalism and seems to be putting the cart before the horse.

“If there are no mandatory requirements, does that mean businesses are no longer responsible for their employees, the environment, and society?Zeng Weigang said that he believes that a good company does not need to set up a special ESG department to enforce this concept, but every employee can take the initiative to practice it.

During this two-hour conversation, we rarely talked about concepts such as ESG and sustainability, but not a single sentence was out of touch with these ideas.This coolest company in the world has long integrated the value of doing business for good into every detail of the company.

The following is a conversation between 36Carbon and Zeng Weigang, edited and published:

Donating the company to the earth is the most self-consistent way

36Carbon: In September 2022, founder Yvon announced that he would "donate the company to the earth". What was the reaction within the company?

Zeng Weigang:This incident caused a sensation at the time, but later when colleagues sat together and talked about it, everyone felt that there seemed to be no other possibility for Yvon except to do this, because this was the only way for Yvon to achieve self-consistency.

The money we earn is the earth’s money. Without the natural environment, there would be no outdoor sports, and no one would buy our products.

36Carbon: Many people would label Patagonia as anti-business.

Zeng Weigang:I don't think there is a problem. The founder Yvon himself is very opposed to business. This kind of extractive capitalism is based on resource consumption and is fundamentally problematic.

Patagonia has rejected large-scale purchases from many industries because these industries have nothing to do with environmental protection.

I remember someone asked me before, if you can make so much money, why don't you make more? What I want to say is, how much is enough? There is no concept of enough in capitalism. We are not against making money, we are more reflecting on the issue of "degree".

36Carbon: Patagonia has received a lot of attention in the past two years. Do you think Patagonia is now a popular brand?

Zeng Weigang:Patagonia has always positioned itself as a niche brand. We never follow trends or create joint products.

Patagonia's slogan this year is "Fashion has nothing to do with us." We want to find the right customer group through this value, that is, real outdoor enthusiasts or environmentalists. But at present, this number is still small, so we hope to expand the community instead of trying to sell more products. I think these are two completely different things.

On the glass wall outside the store, the slogan "Fashion is none of our business" is printed. Image source: Photo by the author

36Carbon: Within Patagonia, many values ​​have become a consensus, but for external upstream and downstream suppliers, how do you convey environmental protection concepts to them?

Zeng Weigang:This is a process that requires constant communication. A good example is PrimaLoft, an American company that makes synthetic cotton insulation materials and is also a supplier to Patagonia.

Since Patagonia itself is quite large, we required when purchasing that the thermal insulation materials must be made of recyclable materials. Later, the company successfully developed an environmentally friendly product, namely PrimaLoft Eco.

Generally, in return, the supplier will provide the buyer with three years of exclusive use rights, but Patagonia gave up the exclusive use rights at the time, on the condition that PrimaLoft replaced all materials in other production lines with this environmentally friendly material. Later, these environmentally friendly materials were also purchased by other brands such as Columbia.

We can do this more long-term thing to promote environmental transformation of the entire industry.

36Carbon: How do customers view Patagonia now? Have they made any suggestions that prompted you to make changes?

Zeng Weigang:Customers assume that Patagonia should be a leader in the field of environmental protection.

I remember that at a German exhibition in 2012, environmental organizations protested at the entrance of the exhibition hall one day, boycotting the use of goose down plucked alive to make down jackets, one of which was Patagonia.

This incident caused a huge shock to the industry. A law firm even sent a special investigation team to investigate the European market and found that the situation was true.

Goose down is a raw material that is freely traded in the international market. At that time, Patagonia did not know the story behind it. Later, we stopped selling down jackets from 2013 to 2015, and we transferred the goose down supply chain to suppliers with better animal welfare. In the past two years, we have also developed synthetic thermal insulation materials and recycled down, which are all manifestations of our customers pushing us to make changes.

Nano Puff cotton clothing series, using synthetic cotton made from recycled polyester. Source: Bata Story

36Carbon: Will this technological change cost more?

Zeng Weigang:The cost will definitely increase, but the product price will not change much.

I think it's not as simple as who will bear the premium. The most important thing is to change the rules of the game. We have spent a lot of time communicating with customers in the past two years: Is animal down the warmest? In fact, there are more high-tech synthetic thermal insulation materials that are not only warm, but also easy to take care of.

We hope to change traditional concepts little by little and make everyone accept more advanced environmental protection technologies.

36Carbon: What is Patagonia’s technical R&D team like?

Zeng Weigang:There are two types of designers in Patagonia's R&D team, one is designers and the other is fabric designers, and the number of these two types of designers is almost the same.

This is not common, because in most companies, designers make up the majority of the staff, responsible for designing styles, colors, and other trends. For clothing fabrics, you can just buy them directly from upstream manufacturers, and you don't need so many people.

But Patagonia spends a lot of effort researching fabrics. We treat our products as equipment, not just a piece of clothing, so we also provide lifetime maintenance services.

Give up KPI and find the right community

36Carbon: How do you evaluate business growth?

Zeng Weigang:I had implemented the KPI system in my company for a few years, but I found it annoying, so I canceled it.

Patagonia does not emphasize performance, but rather emphasizes expanding the community.

The US headquarters will formulate a five-year long-term plan for the Chinese market, but they never dwell on a certain sales figure. I rarely receive emails from the headquarters asking about sales, but more often they ask about customer profiles, how we communicate with customers, and other questions, which are things the company cares about very much.

36Carbon: How do you think the business conditions of the Chinese market are?

Zeng Weigang:The past five years have actually been the healthiest period for Patagonia in the 20 years since it entered the Chinese market. But some people think that we have only opened 6 offline stores in so many years, which is too slow. Is it because we are not strong enough?

Generally, when foreign brands first enter the Chinese market, they all open counters in shopping malls, but Patagonia does not like this approach.

First of all, shopping malls use a lot of electricity. Secondly, Patagonia not only sells products, but also often holds sharing sessions and other activities. It is not flexible enough to operate in shopping malls. Therefore, we prefer to open independent stores, control our own business hours, and organize community activities.

36Carbon: How does Patagonia choose locations for its stores?

Zeng Weigang:When choosing a location, we never look at the city’s GDP, housing prices, etc. Instead, we determine whether there is a Patagonia community in the city. This is why we hold various activities in different places every year, just to find the right community.

We hope that customers will feel like they are at home when they come to our store, so we want to turn the store into an urban living room, where everyone can come just like visiting a friend’s house. They don’t have to buy anything, they can come to repair their equipment, participate in activities, or chat.

36Carbon: There is a famous saying: "Every Patagonia store is a gift to the local community." In the Chinese market, how do you combine brand culture and community activities?

Zeng Weigang:Take architecture as an example. We are going to open a new store in Shanghai this year. This is an area converted from an old cement factory. We plan to convert the more than 30-meter-high smoke exhaust pipe into a rock climbing gym. There are very few places in Shanghai that meet this height requirement, so we can make good use of these old buildings.

Architecture is just one aspect. What is more important is to enable more people to participate in outdoor sports.

Now, every store basically holds activities every week, taking customers to play mountain biking, rock climbing, surfing, etc., which is also part of the employees' job. There is only one way to develop the outdoor industry, which is to find a stable group of outdoor sports people, rather than relying on some trendy brands to sell products every few years.

Each Patagonia store organizes outdoor community activities. Photo source: Photo by the author

36Carbon: How have Patagonia’s customers changed in recent years?

Zeng Weigang:In recent years, the average age of customers has dropped by 5 years. Now 60% are between 25 and 35 years old. This group of young people has a broader vision.

For example, people used to ask, “Aren’t these recycled materials made of garbage? Why are they so expensive?” In the past, customers thought that as long as the goods were cheap and good quality, they were fine. But now we basically don’t encounter this problem. Customers value the values ​​behind the brand, so I think the education of this generation of young people is still very successful.

Last year, I attended an exhibition in Shanghai, and a customer asked Patagonia how it viewed the discharge of nuclear wastewater from Fukushima, Japan. In fact, this question has nothing to do with our brand's supply chain or any product, but our customers care about these environmental issues. He made me realize that brands need to think about their own positioning and values, which are more important to contemporary consumers.

36Carbon: Young people are a group you pay a lot of attention to. What do they think about the prices? To be honest, Patagonia's products are not cheap.

Zeng Weigang:Rather than selling products, we want to convey the value of making the best use of things. If a piece of clothing is really used to its full potential, it doesn’t have to be expensive. An American man once shared a story that he always wore a pair of Patagonia shorts to surf, and he wore them for 25 years. In the end, he calculated that the cost of his clothing for each surfing session was only 1 cent.

In the Chinese market, we have never participated in shopping festivals such as 618 and Double 11. We call on consumers to buy what they need and what they can really use for a long time.

Image source: Bata Story

If you do things the right way, the results will be good.

36Carbon: There is a large repair workshop in the Beijing store. Why does Patagonia attach so much importance to repair services?

Zeng Weigang:Backpacks are consumables in outdoor sports, and Patagonia's repair service started with backpack repairs. Later, the product line expanded and clothes repairs were also started.

There is a story that touched me deeply. A girl came to an event wearing our clothes. She said that it was left by her late father. Sometimes it is not just a simple warm clothing, it can carry a lot of memories, which is why we provide repair services.

We are also making this more interesting by inviting customers to bring old clothing fabrics to the store and make small wallets and handbags together. We also plan to invite everyone to repair clothes and make a recycled garment by themselves.

Source: Photographed by the author

36Carbon: You have been with Patagonia for nearly 20 years. Have you ever had any moments when you didn’t understand something, whether it was a value concept or a business decision?

Zeng Weigang:At first I didn't understand it at all. I felt that Patagonia was talking about environmental protection while making money, which seemed like a two-for-one deal, and I had to find a flaw. But the more I looked, the more I felt that Patagonia's logic was completely self-consistent.

I remember one year when Patagonia's global sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time, which was a milestone for American companies. When the news was announced at the company meeting, everyone applauded, but we all felt that the atmosphere was very strange, and we thought: Have we become the kind of big company that we hate the most, one that is only interested in profit?

Later, my colleagues found that there were many cases of overseas shopping and mixed goods in the orders, so they immediately stopped these supply channels. What's more amazing is that the boss did not intervene in this matter at the time, and all decisions were made by the employees themselves, which was supported by strong cultural values.

36Carbon: It sounds like employees have a lot of autonomy. What is the management model within Patagonia?

Zeng Weigang:Patagonia is like a big family, and the founder Yvon is the head of the family. He is very old-fashioned and doesn't even have an email or business card. In this family, everyone just has to do their job, so Patagonia doesn't care about the position.

For a long time, Patagonia's employee business cards did not have job titles. Now that there are too many employees, they are slowly starting to have them. Yvon doesn't really care about external factors like academic background. He even wrote in his autobiography that he dislikes people from Wall Street the most. For everyone who wants to join Patagonia, Yvon looks at whether their values ​​match.

This is not a top-down command-type company. Employees can generally make their own decisions. As long as employees can match the company's values, the decisions they make are basically correct.

36Carbon: Do you think this value is related to outdoor sports themselves?

Zeng Weigang:There is a huge connection, and I am constantly learning from the outdoors. Two years ago I started learning to surf, and sometimes when I got to the beach I found there were no waves, which made me angry. I spent time and energy running here, but in the end I came up empty-handed.

But then I realized that the problem was not the sea, but myself. The sea doesn't care whether you come or not. This set of thinking logic is brought by human society, full of transactional and utilitarianism.

I learned a lot from the surfers at the beach. When there are waves, I surf. When there are no waves, I chat with friends, write, and slowly adjust my mindset. This is also the same as Patagonia's business philosophy. We never set strict business goals. We just do the right thing.

36Carbon: If you were to give advice or share your experience to those who want to work in the ESG industry, what would you say?

Zeng Weigang:Running a company is like raising a child. You have to follow the child's habits and support him in doing what he likes.

When I first entered the industry, Patagonia's general manager of the Japanese market said something that left a deep impression on me. He said doing business is like Japanese Zen. If you do the right things, the results will naturally be good.

If you focus on the results from the beginning, there is a possibility that you will do everything wrong and you will not get the results.

This is also a very important point in Patagonia's brand culture: pay more attention to the way things are done, and the results will be good.

This is the golden age of ESG. Domestic policies are improving, and everyone in all industries, investment and consumption is talking about ESG. "ESG 36" is a new content IP created by the 36 Carbon team. Each issue will invite ESG leaders in different fields to describe the new ESG ecosystem through their stories and how it reshapes the business world with the power of a huge wave.