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"There is no business to be done on a dead planet."
These words, a quotation from the legendary Sierra Club executive director David Brower, are the first thing you see when you walk into Patagonia headquarters in Ventura, Calif., and really, you can't miss them, given that they're etched into the front door.
The next thing you see, posted on a whiteboard above the reception desk, is today's surf report: "3-5 feet, check water quality." Not too promising. Which is why most of the 350 employees who work at this campus, a block's worth of sunny, yellow Mission-style buildings, are actually in residence. Write "double overheads, offshore wind" on that board, however, and watch the place clear out.
Freeform work environments have become common enough that barefoot employees, cavorting pets and organic chefs hardly merit a second glance. But Patagonia is no Web startup. It's a 35-year-old outdoor-clothing and equipment company. And yet, looking around at the bicycles, the surfboards, the solar panels, the Tibetan prayer flags, the shed full of convalescing owls and hawks, it's clear that you're not in traditional corporate-land, either. The place is all business, but it's business conducted upside down and inside out. Everything about it flies in the face of consultants' recommendations about How to Maximize Profits and Cut Costs. Simply put, it's radical. Which is exactly how Patagonia's founder, Yvon Chouinard, likes it.
Full Story: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/02/8403423/index.htm
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Patagonia: Blueprint for Green Business
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The story of how Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard took his passion for the outdoors and turned it into an amazing business
By Susan Casey
FORTUNE Magazine, May 29, 2007
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