004 - Patagonia

The speaker discusses their thoughts on company-branded clothing and merchandise, particularly in relation to the environmental impact and waste generated. They mention that Patagonia, a company known for its environmental focus, no longer produces company-branded clothing. The speaker questions whether this decision is purely altruistic or a PR move, and also discusses the common practice of companies claiming environmental initiatives without necessarily addressing their other corporate practices. The speaker acknowledges their lack of expertise on the matter and highlights the need for further research. They also touch on the potential ethical concerns of companies that may engage in unethical labor practices while promoting environmental causes. I think, no, I'm sorry to judge you, I apologize, that that was uncalled for, that you didn't deserve that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I try not to have clothing and things that have logos on it because logos go out of style. Someone says something in some public forum and then you have to burn all the associated clothing. I try to have clothing that's just plain, but these days, obviously, with technology companies, you get a lot of swag, as they call it. You get the t-shirts and the hoodies and things like that that's branded with the company's name. Oh, yeah. And if you work for those companies and you pick up the backpacks and all this great stuff, it's very functional, it's very practical, but then you end up walking around with a billboard while you work for the company and after you leave the company because you become uncomfortable in these hoodies or these pencils. Oh, sure. I've got things from a couple of employers back that I still wear, I don't know, just as everyday wear. That's true. Yeah. I don't think much of it when I put it on, I just think like, well, here's a black t-shirt or whatever, but it has a giant screen printed software company across the front or whatever it is. Yeah. I know. I think it's a scam. It's like, hey, free t-shirt, but then they just want you to walk around on the trains and through the cities and whatever, through the woods. And so you go, oh, do you work for that company or do you know that company? It's just, it's terrible. Well, the company branded, this is an interesting thing. Did you know this, a lot of people do company branded merchandise. You can get, I don't know, a mug or whatever, even name brand stuff, you can buy, I don't know if you can, but let's say Levi's jeans, everybody knows Levi's jeans. You can buy Levi's jeans and then you can have them, have your company logo put on them or something like that. I don't know whether that's true. But relatively recently, within the past, I don't know, a few years or so, I think, the brand Patagonia, are you familiar with Patagonia? They now no longer do that. They went out of their way to not do company marketed clothing anymore. And I think their reasoning for this, are you familiar with this? I think their reasoning for it was environmental. They're very, very strong in the environmental space and being a green manufacturing and all that kind of stuff. I think because they felt like, you know, a company giveaway stuff, you know, you're giving away Patagonia fleeces at a conference or something like that. You know, they tend to end up in the garbage or whatever. I don't know whether that's true or not or whether that's the real reason, but that's their stated reason. But yeah, so you can no longer get like a, you know, Microsoft branded Patagonia hoodie or whatever. I mean, I guess you could buy one and then take it to a local shop and have them stitch on there, but Patagonia won't tell it to you. Interesting. I mean, that makes all the Patagonia sort of swag that I have, you know, now a collector's edition. Yeah. It would be more important to keep it. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Patagonia, it's good stuff. I mean, I can't say I'm a huge advocate of their brand, but I'm not opposed to it. It's good stuff. Yeah. Again, it's a good quality, you know, material, it's a good product, but it has the company on it. The files. When you get there, you get those little thread removers, it's like a little, a little sharp needle thing you can stick in there and slowly remove all the stitching so that you can no longer have that. Oh, is that a thing? Well, it's a tool, I don't know what you call it. I do a bit of sewing, not like for fun, but you know, if I got to sew something onto something else, there's a little tool. This is ridiculous. It has a name, I'm sure. But it slides underneath the threads. It's kind of dull on one end and a bit of a sharp needle at the end and then a blade on one side. So it's made for sliding underneath the threads and it cuts the threads without cutting the material. So you can remove a patch or a stitch or something like that without damaging the garment. I like that. Maybe that's a business idea, you know, just any old swag, we can take it and we can remove the stitching from it. No, you send it in, we'll take the logo off. Yeah. We're sponsored by Patagonia, which is where we can wait. That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's very good stuff. Yeah. Well, John, that's fantastic. What are we talking about today? Do you have an opinion or? I mean, I think we added the swag, you know, and it's, you know, I like, I like, I like... Company swag. Well, I like Patagonia first there. I was reading a book, I think I told you about this book, it's called Wasteland. Yes. It's about, it's about the, the unmanaged waste that we are generating as a human, human civilization and all this stuff, like our textiles, our bodily waste, just everything. We're just very wasteful. And just, you know, just the idea that a company is, is putting their foot down and saying, hey, you know, we don't want to do this anymore because it does sort of, it does sort of create waste, you know, it's kind of nice. But is it, is it, is it really altruistic or are they, are they trying to do something with that? Are they trying to create a press release? You know, can we be skeptical? That, that is the, that is the question, John. That is the, that is the question. And I, you know, I got to be honest, we're talking a lot about Patagonia here and I, I'm not an expert in this matter. I'm an expert in most everything in the world, frankly, but this one's not necessarily, yeah, yeah. But they, they seem to probably put their money where their mouth is. I'm going to have to do a little, a little Googling or internet sleuthing here to get, to get things right. But, but they have recently reorganized their company as a, what do they call this? Let's look this up here because our viewers, frankly, listeners, they need to know. Yeah. Patagonia. I don't know where the internet came in. The intern that's usually here. The internet killed me. I, even with its, even with, even with Google's AI responses, they're not, they're not giving anything. But I feel like, maybe I shouldn't be making this up, but I feel like Patagonia relatively recently, recently in the past, I don't know, five years, maybe less, like reorganized instead of being a, a regular for-profit and the not, it's not like a 501C3, like nonprofit. It's like a, there's some other kind of environmental classification or whatever. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But my point being that, that, that gesture seemed to kind of put their, put their money where their mouth is. Yeah. But I don't think that's, I don't think that's common, right? I don't think that's the way. Let's take a, let's look at your run-of-the-mill big company, maybe a tech company or something like that, you know, that's doing something. They make some software product or some group of software products or hardware products. But then they like to, they all like to say, you know, we're, we're planting trees or we're doing whatever, you know, for the environment. You know, I'm not sure that's really, I'm not sure that's really true or honest, you know. Or, yeah, completely honest. It's true, but that's not the reason why they're doing it, perhaps. Well, I mean, yeah. Like anytime I hear somebody say we're planting trees, the CEO is not out there with a shovel. So, first of all, they're not literally planting trees. It's, you know, it's the carbon offsets game. I mean, you know, like, okay, so we're buying, we're paying someone to, to tell us that, you know, 10 million trees have been planted in the swamp or whatever. But, but that doesn't undo, that in itself doesn't undo whatever other corporate ills you may be, you may be doing as a company. I'm not saying they are doing corporate ills, but, you know, if they were, the planting of trees doesn't undo this other thing, you know. You can be a, you can go, you know, be a thief and steal from a store and then also be a good, I don't know, a good father or whatever. I mean, but they're different things. Like, well, yeah, you're good in this part of your life, but you still, you still committed this crime or whatever. That's a terrible analogy, but. So, could we say that Patagonia, they could be a benefactor of child labor, but, you know, still care about, you know, the environment? Not saying that we could say that because that would be perhaps slanderous and, you know. Right. This episode is going to be all that we get. Yvonne Chouinard is knocking on my door with a giant fleece, a fleece noose right now. She's going to strangle me with it. Because you just, you just announced that Patagonia uses child labor. I've uncovered, I've uncovered, yeah, yeah. I mean, I have no indication that Patagonia is using child labor. But like, let's say, yes, let's say Patagonia is working little eight year old Pakistani kid to the bone sewing jackets. Yeah. But they also are planting trees in the Andes. Does the Andes need trees? Yeah. Everyone needs trees. Yeah. You know, you're right. That's a good act and a bad act. Or I guess reverse, not respectively. A bad act and a good act, you know. But one doesn't undo the other. But likewise, one doesn't make up for the other. Does that make sense? That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. You got the thing, you paint yourself in a corner here. We can go different places with this. But yeah. Yeah. I don't want to go too deep into, like, you know, the economics of the young eight year old Pakistani child that Patagonia employs. You know, he could, by working for that, that organization, an international organization such as Patagonia, you know, he could be able to bring food to the table, you know. It might keep him off the streets. Yeah. Oh, so now we're looking at the bright side of child labor? Just saying. Which I had a similar topic to that, but I'm not going to bring it up on this episode. But I did have a similar topic I want to talk about. Not similar related to child labor, but it's the bright side of something dark. I'll say that. I'll leave it that vague. I'm going to add this to my list right now, so I don't forget about it. I'm going to write V and I'm going to say blank because I'm not going to say what it is. Wasn't really so bad. All right. There we go. But I'll leave that little cliffhanger. Stay tuned. Maybe. Perhaps. It's a deep one. We may need to get a few episodes. Yeah. All right. All right. So we'll recap, you know, swag. You can buy it if you want to. You have options. Perhaps a new business venture coming up. Yeah. Popular positions. Popular opinions. That's right. Where we can remove the stitching from swag for you. That's right. You have less swag options than you used to. We cannot sell you Patagonia branded merchandise. Yeah. Because they're all child labor things. Something to look forward to next week. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good episode. It's good. You know, it's not our best. It's not our best. But it might be our second best. Yeah. It might be our second best episode. But it can go up from here. Take care. Take care. All right, folks. Have a good one. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. Take care. 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