The Future of the Responsible Company

Vincent Stanley, Patagonia’s director of philosophy – writing with the company’s founder Yvon Chouinard – describes how it has remained environmentally sound and profitable for half a century.

Benefit the Earth

Businesses must function ethically, even amid a whirlwind of environmental and social crises. Clearly, authors Stanley and Chouinard have given business ethics and Earth’s crises a lot of thought. Since the 19th century, they recount, humanity has created vast numbers of industrial chemicals that pollute waterways and enter the bodies of people and animals. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere drives global warming and extreme weather. Earth’s sixth and ongoing major extinction event means that species are vanishing at 1,000 times the speed scientists have identified as normal.