巴塔哥尼亚掌门人的商业乌托邦

    一位公司高管竭力劝说客户不要购买本公司的产品？这听起来未免太荒唐了，但这正是伊冯•乔伊纳德喜欢做的事情。素以直言不讳、破除传统观念著称的乔伊纳德是高端户外服饰和设备制造商Patagonia公司的创始人。他认为，资本主义正走在一条不可持续发展的道路上。在制造和销售的过程中，我们使用太多的资源，购买低质量商品，然后迅速地将其扔掉。乔伊纳德最近与Patagonia公司高管文森特•士丹利合作撰写了一本颇具挑衅意味的新书《负责任的公司》（The Responsible Company）。乔伊纳德在书中辩称，我们必须迈向一个商品皆为高质量、可回收且可修复的“后消费主义经济”时代。正如这位热衷登山运动的企业家所言，现在，“我们生产、销售的大多数东西都是臭狗屎。”

    他现在给出的解决方案非常简单：如果Patagonia滑雪服的手臂上裂了个口子，不要把它扔掉，然后再去买一套新的。请把它寄回来，Patagonia公司会给你缝好。你的帐篷已经无法修复了？请把它寄回来，Patagonia公司将回收这些材料。

    我们几乎可以听到沃尔玛公司（Wal-Mart，财富500强企业）的高管们从位于阿肯色州本顿维尔市的公司总部中发出的喘息。但Patagonia公司的做法或许不无道理。这家年销售额高达4亿美元的私营公司报告称，尽管它鼓励顾客减少消费，它也依然赚到了真金白银。至少从某种意义上说，Patagonia公司已经赢得了沃尔玛的支持。2008年，Patagonia与这家巨型零售商合作，共同发起一个名为“可持续服装联盟（Sustainable Apparel Coalition）”的组织。该组织成员生产的服装现在占全球服装总销量的30%以上。这个联盟目标是研发工具，测量、监控并减少服装产业对环境造成的影响。这并不是一件容易完成的任务。比如，追踪一件衬衫的原材料的来源可能会费尽百般周折而不能如愿。你或许听说某家中国服装制造商正在使出浑身解数坚守环保标准，但为它提供染料的公司是什么情况呢？

    乔伊纳德的批评者指出，他自己当然“玩得起”激进的环保策略，原因是，作为一家私营小公司的老板，他无需面对季度收益恶化引发的公众怒火，进而可以从长远的角度考虑问题。但他反驳说，减少一家公司对环境的影响对股东同样有利。下一代消费者（包括数百万使用有机食物，穿有机服饰的千禧一代）是不会善待污染者的。如今，社交媒体无所不在，污染环境可能会产生非常严重的后果。此外，乔伊纳德还认为，由于人口不断增长，需求增加，势必提升石油、钢材、水和其他原材料的价格，那些使用更少资源制造产品的公司有望降低成本，并由此占据更有利的竞争地位。

    眼看着中国、印度和其他发展中国家的经济毫无拘束地增长，看到数十亿人正在竞相追逐美式生活，我们很难想象乔伊纳德所梦想的那个消费更少，污染更少，商品质量更高的乌托邦世界将会一统天下（他并没有解释低收入消费者怎样才能负担高质量的产品）。乔伊纳德深知挑战之严峻。他指出，生产一件使用有机棉制成的Patagonia马球衫需要耗费相当于900个人一天饮用水的水资源，产生30倍于其自身重量的二氧化碳，以及3倍于其自身重量的垃圾。这称得上可持续吗？没有什么经济活动是可持续的，但乔伊纳德正在引领我们实现这个梦想。

    译者：任文科

    An executive who tries to talk his customers out of buying his products? It sounds nuts, but that's just what Yvon Chouinard loves to do. The outspoken, iconoclastic founder of Patagonia, maker of high-end outdoor clothing and equipment, believes that capitalism is on an unsustainable path. In the process of making and selling, we use too many resources and buy low-quality goods that we quickly throw away. In his new, provocative book, The Responsible Company, written with Patagonia executive Vincent Stanley, Chouinard contends that we must move toward a "post-consumerist economy" where goods are high quality, recyclable, and repairable. Today, as the mountain-climber entrepreneur puts it, "most of what we produce to sell each other is crap."

    His solution, for now, is simple: Have a Patagonia ski parka with a rip in the arm? Don't throw it away and buy a new one. Send it back, and the company will sew it up. Is your tent beyond repair? Send it back, and Patagonia will recycle the material.

    You can almost hear Wal-Mart's executives gasping all the way from Bentonville, Ark. But Patagonia may be onto something. The private company, with annual sales of $400 million, reports that it makes money even while encouraging its customers to consume less. And in at least one sense, it has won overWal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500). In 2008, Patagonia joined with the big-box store to launch the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, whose members now produce more than 30% of all clothing sold globally. The goal is to develop the tools to measure, monitor, and reduce the impact the apparel industry has on the environment. It is no easy task. Tracing the origins of, say, a shirt's raw materials can be devilish. You might know that a Chinese maker of the cloth is doing her best to uphold environmental standards, but what about the company that supplied the dye?

    Chouinard's critics point out that he can afford to go radically green because, as the owner of a small private company, he can think long-term without the pressure of public outrage at quarterly earnings. Reducing a corporation's impact on the environment is good for shareholders, he counters. The next generation of consumers -- including millions of millennials who eat and wear organic -- do not take kindly to polluters. The consequences in this age of social media can be severe. Chouinard also says he believes that companies that make their products with fewer resources will lower their costs and be in a better competitive position as the prices of oil, steel, water, and other raw materials inevitably rise due to increased demand from growing populations.

    When one looks at the unbridled growth in China, India, and other parts of the developing world, where billions are vying for an American lifestyle, it's hard to imagine that Chouinard's utopian world of less consumption, less waste, and higher-quality goods will prevail. (How low-income consumers will afford high-quality products, he doesn't say.) He does understand the challenge, pointing out that a Patagonia polo shirt, made of organic cotton, consumes in the making enough daily drinking water for 900 people and produces 30 times its weight in CO2 and three times its weight in waste. Sustainable? No economic activity is yet sustainable, but Chouinard is leading the charge to get us there.