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Comment by Bakary | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't the biggest impact for the environment be the company ceasing production altogether? I'm not trying to be a smart-ass here, just that even a company with highly ethically sourced items is still supplementary consumption and productions.

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No, because the alternative is customers going to another company for a similar product. Customers don’t buy jackets they don’t need, so taking Patagonia off the table would in fact probably increase the overall impact to the environment since they’re the best in the market. Analogy: imagine in Tesla stopped production tomorrow. Would people stop buying cars?

But people want to prematurely replace their current items when they hear about something cooler all the time. In fact, this might be particularly acute with products like Teslas that function in some ways like a semi-Veblen good.

I don’t think so. I was chatting with a couple that worked at two separate companies, both of which manufacture and process things like fabrics and other materials for many different companies. They both said Patagonia is far and away the most conscientious customer they have and that they are very proactive about finding solutions to problems in the industry. They told me about how Patagonia would set up meetings to collaborate with these manufactures to figure how to develop more sustainable practices and use alternative materials, as well as some of the programs the company was doing to offset the harm they cause.

That’s why I think it’s far more important that a company like this exist, one that works in the industry and understands it, but wants to fix the issues with it. The alternative is that they drop out and another company fills the gap, one that isn’t interested in those goals at all.

If they ceased production, demand wouldn't disappear. The customers would just shop elsewhere, at a less environmentally-conscious business.

Definitely worth reading Chouinard’s book “Let My People Go Surfing,” in which he discusses this very question.

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