Skip to main content

Laxaþjóð | A Salmon Nation

Our relationship with nature not only defines our history, it shapes our future, too. Yet beneath the surface of Iceland’s fjords, an industrial fish farming method threatens to destroy one of Europe’s last remaining wildernesses. Laxaþjóð | A Salmon Nation tells the story of a country united by its lands and waters, and the power of a community to protect the wild places and animals that helped forge its identity.

Learn more

Shipping Information

We do our best to process and ship orders within 1-2 business days (Monday-Friday, excluding holidays). We kindly ask that you choose standard shipping where possible to reduce our environmental impact. If you have any questions about your order, you can reach out to our Customer Service team and we will be happy to help.

More Details

Returns

Unsure of the right size? Can’t decide between jackets? Our Customer Service team is here to help—the less unnecessary shipping, the better. We have no time limit on returns and accept both current and past-season products.

How returns work Start your return Customer Service

Subscribe

Sign up for product highlights, original stories, activism awareness, event updates and more.

What It Means to Make Patagonia a More Transparent Company

 /  September 20, 2010 3 Min Read  /  Our Footprint, Activism, Design

For the past nine weeks I’ve been taking a course in fiction writing. As part of the class, we write short stories and critique each other’s finished works.  The other night we critiqued a classmate’s story about a woman who worked for a corporation that took extreme measures – from forcing employees to sign far-reaching confidentiality agreements to installing cameras on campus – to protect its secrets.

As with other stories, we eventually got around to discussing the believability of this one. I thought the level of secrecy at the company was a bit overdone (and not intended to be), but my classmates reached an unusual consensus on this point: it was a very realistic portrayal. They agreed that regardless of the size of the corporation or the type of industry, executives spared no expense to keep information from the public, and even from employees.

The discussion reminded me of this widely held perception. It also reminded me of the purpose of a project I’ve been working on for Patagonia – to increase the transparency of our work.

Footprint That project – The Footprint Chronicles – puts this notion about corporations and transparency to the test more than any other I’ve worked on. It originated from the belief, citing Socrates’ philosophy on leading an examined life, that we need to continuously learn about ourselves in order to lessen our own footoprint. It also grew from the belief that by sharing what we learned with the public, we would earn customer confidence and inspire other businesses to be more transparent, too.

022_arvind_organic_jeans [Above, left – One of the many steps involved in constructing our Chacabuco Pack. This photo comes from a series of pictures taken by Kevin Cotleur, our new product developer for packs and luggage, during his first visit to the factory that produces these packs. The company, Kanaan Saigon Company, operates their factory in Duc Hoa, Vietnam. Photo: Kevin Cotleur. Above, right and right – An example that illustrates the value of first-hand factory visits. Photos and captions come from the slideshow series "Sewing: Bangalore, India" in the Footprint for our Organic Cotton Jeans. [upper photo] "Before placing our first order we had reviewed a third-party audit that gave Arvind a substantially clean bill of health. But third-party auditors often rely on local staff, who may see that workers wear required face masks. . . . [lower photo] but not notice they are wearing flip flops (common work wear in many Asian countries) around chemicals. Local auditors can be invaluable – they know the language and culture and thus often see things that a foreigner might miss – but might miss other things. This brought home for us the critical importance of having our own staff visit a factory. Photos: Cara Chacon]

Popular searches