regenerative ag

Patagonia Case Study [3 of 4] – Strategy (Rebroadcast)

Subscribe to Next Economy Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts.

This is the third episode in a rebroadcast of our four part interview series with Vincent Stanley from Patagonia.

Tired of all the rebroadcasts? We have been working on a new project that will be launching 8/22/22. More info to come in the coming weeks!

Vincent Stanley, co-author with Yvon Chouinard of "The Responsible Company", has been with Patagonia on and off since its beginning in 1973, for many of those years in key executive roles as head of sales or marketing. More informally, he is Patagonia’s long-time chief storyteller. Vincent helped develop the Footprint Chronicles, the company’s interactive website that outlines the social and environmental impact of its products; the Common Threads Partnership; and Patagonia Books. He currently serves as the company’s Director, Patagonia Philosophy, and is a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management. He is also a poet whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry. He and his wife, the writer Nora Gallagher, live in Santa Barbara.

Interview Highlights:

  • Patagonia’s approach to marketing and how it’s evolved over time

  • Exploration of the thinking behind Patagonia’s feature-length films

  • How Patagonia intentionally cultivates their brand community

  • Standing up for what you stand for might mean standing against or alienating potential customers and strategic partners

  • Doing what’s right and authentic is good business

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LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 8,000+ subscribers and get our free 60-point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

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Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 350+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

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Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast. 

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Patagonia Case Study [1 of 4] – Vision (Rebroadcast)

Subscribe to Next Economy Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts.

This is the first episode in a rebroadcast of our four part interview series with Vincent Stanley from Patagonia.

Tired of all the rebroadcasts? We have been working on a new project that will be launching 8/22/22. More info to come in the coming weeks!

Vincent Stanley, co-author with Yvon Chouinard of "The Responsible Company", has been with Patagonia on and off since its beginning in 1973, for many of those years in key executive roles as head of sales or marketing. More informally, he is Patagonia’s long-time chief storyteller. Vincent helped develop the Footprint Chronicles, the company’s interactive website that outlines the social and environmental impact of its products; the Common Threads Partnership; and Patagonia Books. He currently serves as the company’s Director, Patagonia Philosophy, and is a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management. He is also a poet whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry. He and his wife, the writer Nora Gallagher, live in Santa Barbara.

Interview Highlights:

  • Four critical moments in Patagonia’s history: rock climbing with petons, the Ventura River, organic cotton, and “Don’t Buy This Jacket.”

  • How Patagonia developed its new mission statement

  • The Stockholm Resilience framework and how Patagonia thinks about planetary boundaries

  • The company’s approach to growth and why they should (or should not) grow

  • The eight business philosophies that guide the company’s decision-making and operations

—-

LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 8,000+ subscribers and get our free 60-point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

---

Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 350+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

---

Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast. 

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees (Rebroadcast)

Subscribe to Next Economy Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts.

Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

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Interview Highlights:

  • How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

  • Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

  • How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

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LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 8,000+ subscribers and get our free 60-point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

---

Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 350+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

---

Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast. 

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Rick Ridgeway: Why Patagonia is Moving from Sustainability to Regeneration (Rebroadcast)

"When you dig down into any social justice issue, more often than not, the causes have some root in environmental degradation."  - Rick Ridgeway

In this episode of Next Economy Now, Ryan Honeyman, a Partner at LIFT Economy, interviews Rick Ridgeway, VP of Environmental Initiatives at Patagonia.

Rick Ridgeway is one of the originals at Patagonia. He was rock climbing buddies with Yvon Chouinard before Patagonia was founded in 1973.

In this episode, we discuss Rick’s background as a photographer and filmmaker, his time on Patagonia's board of directors, and why Rick got his first “real job” only 12 years ago. We also dive into Patagonia’s famous mission statement to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

As you’ll hear, Rick is especially interested in moving away from “causing no unnecessary harm” (or sustainability) to “doing good” (which is regenerative). Rick and I discuss how things like soil health, regenerative agriculture, rotational grazing, and clothing that benefits the climate are increasingly on Patagonia’s radar.

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Interview Highlights:

In this interview, Ryan and Rick discuss a number of topics, including:

  • Why Patagonia doesn’t mention solving social or community issues in its mission statement

  • What happened when Patagonia discovered forced labor in its Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers last year

  • Why the Sustainable Apparel Coalition is the largest trade association in apparel and footwear in the world

  • Whether he is optimistic or pessimistic about the future

  • Patagonia’s new initiatives in carbon sequestration

  • Why you should know Fred Kirschenmann (from the Aldo Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture), the Carbon Underground, and Kiss the Ground

  • And much more

---

LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 7000+ subscribers and get our free 60 point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

---

Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 250+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

---

Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts by visiting: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Noran Sanford, Ravin Patel, & Norman Garcia-Lopez: "Flip Your Prison" with Growing Change

Noran with youth.jpg

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Founder of Growing Change, Noran Sanford grew up in an abusive, working-class Scot-Irish family in rural North Carolina. Ever since a young age he had a strong sense of justice, and took a stand against racism in his home even though it meant getting knocked down.

Scholarships for community involvement in high school helped Noran attend university at UNC-Chapel Hill. There he co-founded one of the few college Habitat for Humanity chapters in the country and, when then-President Reagan’s policies resulted in large populations of people shifting from mental health institutions to homeless shelters, he rallied UNC’s athletes to volunteer in shelters, helping deescalate violent situations and prevent police intervention. As a young professional, himself diagnosed with PTSD, he won awards his work in the passage of mental health parity laws in Virginia and for his work advocating for students with disabilities.

In 2000, Noran got married and moved back to Laurinburg to provide home care for his mother who was an Alzheimer’s victim. He “was stunned to find that our challenged area had grown more difficult.” Noran had been heavily involved in community work but, after 20 years “in the trenches”, he became disillusioned with the impact he was having as a counselor. Then, five years ago, at the funeral for “another young man who was lost to gang violence” he made the commitment to “never stand at another graveside for a young person I worked with asking myself if I could have done ‘more.’ This is the 'more.'”

Interview Highlights:

  • How Growing Change is a youth-empowered model taking closed prisons locally – among the hundreds nationally – and transforming them into a replicable model with sustainable farms that generate revenue and livelihoods while regenerating the land and local communities.

  • Hear directly from youth leaders Ravin Patel and Norman Garcia-Lopez about their skills and experience with Growing Change

  • Stay tuned for the Growing Change youth-led DIY “Flip Your Prison” series on their YouTube channel and the “Prison Flip Toolkit” soon to be available on their website (where you can support their work by donating via their PayPal link)

Resources:

Youth Are Flipping an Abandoned North Carolina Prison into a Sustainable Farm

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Doria Robinson & Princess Robinson: BIPOC Community Wealth Building at Cooperation Richmond

Doria Robinson.jpg

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Growing up with a mother who was an illegal resident from Samoa, a single parent of 4 children with no educational background, Princess Robinson was raised in a low income community in Richmond CA with little resources and an unstable home.

Now herself a mother, wife, Richmond resident, and community advocate, Princess Robinson has worked with Urban Tilth, as an environmental steward, restoring creek ecosystems and providing fresh locally grown produce in food deserts throughout Richmond.

After years of community service, neighborhood meetings, community boards, and serving in many initiatives working toward a Just Transition economy throughout her community (such as beautification projects, alternative housing solutions, and implementing sustainable practices through climate justice systems), as a returning college student, Princess graduated 2019 with 3 AA degrees in business, sociology, and liberal arts.

Currently, she serves as a Project Manager for Cooperation Richmond where she supports her community members develop and launch worker-owned cooperative businesses in their community.

Doria Robinson is a 3rd generation resident of Richmond, California and the Executive Director of Urban Tilth. She is also a cofounder of Cooperation Richmond, a Richmond-based, resident-led worker-owned cooperative developer and small loan fund that builds community controlled wealth through worker-owned and community-owned cooperative businesses and enterprises by and for low-income communities and communities of color in Richmond whose wealth has been extracted.

Doria is also a dedicated Food Sovereignty, Climate Justice and Just Transition Activist, as well as the co-convener of US Food Sovereignty Alliance Western Region and an active member of the Climate Justice Alliance and Richmond Our Power Coalition. Doria currently lives in the neighborhood where she grew up in Richmond with her wonderful 18-year-old twins.

Interview Highlights:

  • The genesis of Cooperation Richmond, from Urban Tilth to leveraging values-aligned enterprise through cooperative development that supports and really meets people where they’re at

  • Some background on the Seed Commons, spawned by The Working World, and it’s relationship with Cooperation Richmond

  • An overview of the racialized and economic history of Richmond California – from the impact of wartime industries to Chevron and the significance of these community efforts in that context

  • A call for listeners to create local loan funds or investment clubs that advance Cooperation Richmond’s model in your local community

Resources:

Urban Tilth

The Working World

Rich City Rides

Star Wyngz

Princess Robinson’s work w/ Wildcat Creek

Richmond Progressive Alliance

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Natalie Reitman-White: Restructuring Organically Grown Co. to a Perpetual Purpose Trust

NatalieReitmann-White_25940_StudioSura (1).jpg

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Natalie Reitman-White served as Vice President of Organizational Vitality and Trade Advocacy at Organically Grown Company, one of the largest independent distributors of organic produce in the country, where in 2018 she led an groundbreaking move to restructure the company ownership under a Perpetual Purpose Trust.

This initiative was featured in 2019 Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, and Natalie was recognized as “a leading executive and change-maker in efforts to make food supply greener, healthier and equitable.”

She founded and served as the Executive Director of the Sustainable Food Trade Association (2008-12), she was on the faculty of the Institute for Sustainable Environment, serves on numerous advisory boards throughout the organic food sector.

Recently Natalie has shifted her focus to transformative finance and ownership models that ensure mission maximization, shared prosperity for multiple-stakeholders and lasting independence through growth or business transition.

In the last year she supported the launch of the Purpose Foundation to grow the movement toward a new paradigm of “steward-ownership” in the U.S. through field building, infrastructure development, and investment.

In 2020 she co-launched Alternative Ownership Advisors, is a Trustee of the Sustainable Food & Agriculture Purpose Trust, and is in Cohort 5 of the New Zealand Edmund Hillary Fellowship for Global Change Makers.

Interview Highlights:

  • Natalie’s background as an activist that informed her work to shift corporate behavior that is irresponsible to it’s stakeholders

  • Translating principles of regeneration in a farming context to a business context

  • Examining the purpose of a corporation and making a distinction between driving shareholder value and actual value

  • A background on Organically Grown Company’s mission, operations, and iterations of the company’s structure to be ever closer to the values that inform the mission

  • Organically Grown Company’s innovating on the Employee Owned Trust model by making it multi-stakeholder and anchoring it in the purpose of transforming food and agriculture – a “Perpetual Purpose Trust”

Resources:

Alternative Ownership Advisors: A Steward Ownership Consultancy

Fast Company: This company pioneered a new business structure to preserve its mission

Next City: Why Employee Ownership Wasn’t Good Enough for This Organic Food Company

The National Center for Employee Ownership

Christopher Michael: Could the Employee Ownership Trust Better Sustain Perpetual Employee Ownership?

Christopher Michael P.C. – Employee Ownership Law

The Climate Collaborative

Sustainable Food Trade Association

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Shawn Berry is a Partner at LIFT Economy, where he works as an organizational strategist inspired to harness the power of business to create resilient local economies as patterns to be documented, open sourced, scaled globally and adapted regionally.

Modou Sowe: No-Till Farming in California & The Gambia

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Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Modou Sowe is born to a farming community called Wellingara Village in The Gambia. He was among the lucky children of farmers with the opportunity to be educated.

Upon completion of his High School education in 2004, he realized that the ever increasing livestock theft has affected farmers and even forced them to sell the herds.

With the determination for a change, he organized his fellow youths to combat against this problem by forming a small community based organization called the shepherd and livestock owners association which expands to be a national association called The National Livestock Owners Association in which he is the Secretary General.

Modou is also the national youth coordinator of the national coordinating organization for farmers association The Gambia (NACOFAG). Which is the national networking organization for all farmers associations in The Gambia.

In 2018, he was selected to participate in a yearlong leadership training program by the McCain Institute for International Leadership in the USA and specialized in farming.

Modou hopes to increase youth participation in the agricultural value chain of The Gambia for youth empowerment opportunities, economic development and national food security by establishing the first ever no till organic farm academy that will train, support and motivate youth farmers in no-till farming.

Interview Highlights:

  • Modou shares his background, giving some background on his agricultural work in The Gambia

  • Modou discusses his experience with Singing Frogs Farm, no till farming, and it’s implications for climate change and the conditions for farming in The Gambia

  • Modou shares his insights for what he believes is most needed for the people and the land in The Gambia

Links:

https://www.gofundme.com/support-next-generation-farmers-in-the-gambia/

https://www.mccaininstitute.org/next-generation-leaders/modou-sowe/

https://www.mccaininstitute.org/podcast/in-the-arena-episode-29-modou-sowe/

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This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (http://www.lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective. 

Join the growing network of nearly 250+ alumni who have learned essential skills, increased their confidence in Next Economy business fundamentals, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Courses are offered twice per year. Learn more and/or register today at http://www.lifteconomy.com.mba.

—

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-economy-now-business-as-a-force-for-good/id1074584017

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Birgit Cameron: Patagonia Provisions' Pioneers Regenerative Organic Food

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Birgit Cameron is Managing Director at Patagonia Provisions, a division of Patagonia Works, based in Sausalito, California. In 2012, she launched Patagonia Provisions with Yvon Chouinard, the founder/owner of Patagonia, and Patagonia’s CEO, Rose Marcario. The company was created as a way to broaden Patagonia’s environmental mission by partnering with forward-thinking farmers, ranchers and fisherman and offering a variety of regeneratively sourced organic food.

Over the past six years, she has introduced a varied line of mission-based food products intended to address critical environmental issues, while establishing a model to help restore the food chain. Patagonia Provisions has doubled its sales each year, as Birgit has rapidly expanded the company into national grocery and outdoor lifestyle chains and international markets. In addition, through Patagonia Provisions she has been a keen advocate, financial supporter and partner to a variety of noteworthy organizations who follow similar values and mission as the company: "we're in business to save our home planet". Her work with Patagonia Provisions has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek.

In 2016, Birgit produced “Unbroken Ground”, an award-winning documentary detailing the critical role food plays in solving the environmental crisis. Later that year, working closely with The Land Institute, she introduced Patagonia Provisions’ Long Root Ale, the first beer made with a new perennial grain called Kernza. In 2018, she worked, as a part of Patagonia’s efforts, to establish the Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROC), a new high-bar organic certification that includes optimizing soil health to sequester more carbon, and values animals' and workers' welfare. Under Birgit’s leadership, Patagonia Provisions has become a recognized leader in the organic food movement.

Birgit lives in Marin County, CA with her husband and their two daughters.

Birigt-Cameron_photo-by-Amy-Kumler.jpg

Interview Highlights:

  • Birgit shares her background on how she came to lead Patagonia Provisions

  • Insight into how Patagonia Provisions vets its suppliers

  • A backstory on Patagonia Provisions’ beer, Long Root Ale, the first beer made with a new perennial grain called Kernza

  • A breakdown of what the regenerative-organic standard is and why it matters

  • What we can expect from Patagonia Provisions in the near future

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

  

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Patagonia Case Study (3 of 4) – Strategy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Vincent Stanley, co-author with Yvon Chouinard of "The Responsible Company", has been with Patagonia on and off since its beginning in 1973, for many of those years in key executive roles as head of sales or marketing. More informally, he is Patagonia’s long-time chief storyteller. Vincent helped develop the Footprint Chronicles, the company’s interactive website that outlines the social and environmental impact of its products; the Common Threads Partnership; and Patagonia Books. He currently serves as the company’s Director, Patagonia Philosophy, and is a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management. He is also a poet whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry. He and his wife, the writer Nora Gallagher, live in Santa Barbara.

vincent-stanley-patagonia (1).jpg

Interview Highlights:

  • Patagonia’s approach to marketing and how it’s evolved over time

  • Exploration of the thinking behind Patagonia’s feature-length films

  • How Patagonia intentionally cultivates their brand community

  • Standing up for what you stand for might mean standing against or alienating potential customers and strategic partners

  • Doing what’s right and authentic is good business

Other Episodes in this series:


Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

  1. SHARE this post on social media!

  2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Patagonia Case Study (1 of 4) – Vision

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Vincent Stanley, co-author with Yvon Chouinard of "The Responsible Company", has been with Patagonia on and off since its beginning in 1973, for many of those years in key executive roles as head of sales or marketing. More informally, he is Patagonia’s long-time chief storyteller. Vincent helped develop the Footprint Chronicles, the company’s interactive website that outlines the social and environmental impact of its products; the Common Threads Partnership; and Patagonia Books. He currently serves as the company’s Director, Patagonia Philosophy, and is a visiting fellow at the Yale School of Management. He is also a poet whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry. He and his wife, the writer Nora Gallagher, live in Santa Barbara.

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Interview Highlights:

  • Four critical moments in Patagonia’s history: rock climbing with petons, the Ventura River, organic cotton, and “Don’t Buy This Jacket.”

  • How Patagonia developed its new mission statement

  • The Stockholm Resilience framework and how Patagonia thinks about planetary boundaries

  • The company’s approach to growth and why they should (or should not) grow

  • The eight business philosophies that guide the company’s decision-making and operations

Other Episodes in this series:


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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

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Interview Highlights:

  • How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

  • Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

  • How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Lindsay Cruver: Raising Our Regenerative Mussel Memory at Catalina Sea Ranch

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Lindsay Cruver is the Director of Research & Development at Catalina Sea Ranch, and her team evaluates and implements new science and technology to advance sustainable and regenerative offshore crop cultivation. She earned her bachelors degree in Biology from the George Washington University and is the daughter of the CEO of Catalina Sea Ranch, the first offshore aquaculture facility in the United States, based in Los Angeles, California.

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Some highlights from Erin Axelrod’s conversation with Lindsay Cruver include:

  • The 100-acre Catalina Sea Ranch is the first and currently the only offshore aquaculture facility in the U.S. and is located on the periphery of about 26,000 acres (40 square miles) of U.S. Federal waters of the San Pedro Shelf.

  • Lindsay describes the sea ranching process and the technology that Catalina Sea Ranch uses and contrasts clean aquaculture from dirty aquaculture

  • Lindsay shares how their production process benefits their environment by creating habitat for other organisms such that private and commercial fishers surround the ranch to catch yellowtail fish the ranch attracts

  • Listeners are invited to consider mussels as a healthy source of sustainably produced protein

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Brock Dolman: Thirsty for a Balanced Water Budget

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Brock Dolman co-directs the WATER Institute, Permaculture Design Program and Wildlands Program. He has taught Permaculture and consulted on regenerative project design and implementation internationally in Costa Rica, Ecuador, U.S. Virgin Islands, Spain, Brazil, China, Canada, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba and widely in the U.S. He has been the keynote presenter at numerous conferences and was featured in the award-winning films The 11th Hour by Leonardo DiCaprio, The Call of Life by Species Alliance, and Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution by Vanessa Shultz. In October of 2012, he gave a City 2.0 TEDx talk. Brock completed his BA in the Biology and Environmental Studies departments at the University of California Santa Cruz in 1992, graduating with honors. For over a decade, he has served as an appointed commissioner on the Sonoma County Fish & Wildlife Commission. 

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Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Brock Dolman include:

  • Unpacking aspects of the ecological, biological, & economic importance of water

  • Adaptation to global warming by maximizing/stretching our water budgets at various scales

  • Suggestions for transitioning ecologically from viscous cycles to virtuous cycles & personal resilience strategies

  • An overview of some of Brock’s exciting projects at The WATER Institute at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center and beyond

Resources:

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Beth Rattner: Exciting Opportunities Through Biomimetic Design

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Beth Rattner is the executive director for the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit co-founded by Janine Benyus. Beth directs the Institute’s strategic vision and mission to create a new generation of nature-inspired innovators and oversees the organization’s three programs: Youth Design Challenge, Global Design Challenge + Launchpad, and AskNature. She is a frequent speaker on how biomimetic design in products, cities, and agriculture can bring about a new level of repair and cooperation to our economy and ecosystem which in turn will spur new levels of social equity. 

Prior to this position, Beth worked with William McDonough and Michael Braungart on The Upcycle, the sequel to Cradle to Cradle, before she helped co-found the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and became its first executive director and vice president. Beth was also a managing director for one of the first sustainability business consultant firms, Blu Skye, and business manager for Hewlett Packard’s Emerging Market Solutions (EMS) group. This HP internal “start-up” championed a new lens on providing technology solutions to those who earn less than $2 a day. The team launched HP’s first multi-user, daisy-chained computer for poorly funded schools and a solar-powered printer. The printer provided microfinance opportunities for women who brought paid photography to remote villages, allowing people to photograph their family events for the very first time. Beth is a graduate of U.C.L.A. and Loyola Law School and lives in Marin County, California.

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Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Beth Rattner include:

  • A brief introduction to the field of biomimicry

  • How so much of what we depend upon in the chemical & materials world could be addressed through structural design

  • Examples of exciting products inspired by biomimetic design

  • How biomimicry is a perfect compliment to many of the solutions proposed in Project Drawdown

  • How the Biomimicry Institute can capture the genius of today’s engineers and designers to solve today’s most pressing challenges

Resources:

Book: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Kelsey Ducheneaux: Resprouting Ancestral Seeds & Local Economies

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Kelsey Ducheneaux is a member of the Lakota Sioux Nation. Alongside her work as a beef cattle rancher on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, Ducheneaux is the youth programs coordinator and natural resource director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council, a national organization working to improve Indian Country. 

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Resources:

Intertribal Agriculture Council – Youth

Native Youth Food Sovereignty Alliance

Organic reach: Food sovereignty moves to the web

Project H3LP

Lyla June

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Darrie Ganzhorn: Transforming Land & Lives at Homeless Garden Project

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Darrie Ganzhorn is the executive director of Santa Cruz’s Homeless Garden Project, an incredible nonprofit that provides job training, transitional employment and support services to those in need on an organic farm and garden.  Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Ganzhorn studied marine biology at UC Berkeley. She worked at the Hopkins Marine Station after graduation, but when her son was born, she had an epiphany. “I didn’t want to do research anymore. I wanted to do something based on human needs. I wanted to do something that was more basic and vital,” Ganzhorn said in her interview. She found meaningful work at the Homeless Garden Project, where she interned in 1991 when she began working one-on-one with Project trainees, not long after the Project was started by UCSC philosophy professor and social visionary Paul Lee.  Darrie has held various positions at the Homeless Garden Project evolved. She provides a multi-year perspective on the development of this internationally known organization.

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Resources:

Shop around in HGP's Online Store

Growing Hope, part 1  & Growing Hope, part 2 (This thirty minute video, narrated by Harrison Ford was filmed in 1996 and shows the beginnings of the homeless garden project. DVD available here.)

Book: Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander

HGP Blog Post: Here, Amongst the Flowers and Vegetables

Permaculture Action Network

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Winona LaDuke: Seeds of Hope for a Healthy Next Economy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. And in her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non profit organizations in the country, and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering. In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her leadership and community commitment. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms.Woman of the Year ( with the Indigo Girls in l997) , and the Reebok Human Rights Award, with which in part she began the White Earth Land Recovery Project. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has won many awards- including the prestigious 2003 International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity, recognizing the organization’s work to protect wild rice from patenting and genetic engineering. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and is presently an advisory board member for the Trust for Public Lands Native Lands Program as well as a boardmember of the Christensen Fund. The Author of five books, including Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations and a novel- Last Standing Woman, she is widely recognized for her work on environmental and human rights issues

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https://www.winonashemp.com/

 

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.


Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Gretchen Grani: Guayaki's Authentic Invitation to Come to Life

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Regeneration & Sustainability Cebadora at Guayaki, Gretchen Grani has directed corporate sustainability and philanthropy for 2 natural products companies. Prior experience includes managing an environmental conservation nonprofit and serving on numerous nonprofit boards, environmental consulting, writing about ecopsychology, and volunteering at a St. Helena winery for 15 years. Gretchen is an advocate for personal regeneration and regenerative business as a solution to reversing climate change and solving the world’s biggest social and environmental problems.

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Resources:

https://www.climatecollaborative.com/

https://mamuse.bandcamp.com/track/we-shall-be-known-featuring-thrive-choir

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Arjan Stephens: Cereal Entrepreneurs Leave Soil Better Than They Found It

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Arjan Stephens serves as Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Nature's Path. Arjan was named one of Business in Vancouver’s ‘Top 40 under 40’ in 2012. He’s the second generation of the Nature’s Path organic foods company, a business he says was “founded on a hope and a dream and a $1,500 loan”, and is still driven by those same values 30 years later, now it’s turning over $300m a year and selling into over 50 countries. One of Arjan’s main purposes is to move the world away from zombie-like consumerism and encourage consciousness, especially with food. He believes our forks and wallets are the most powerful tools for change, and organic agriculture is the catalyst that will transform the world for the better. Arjan received his bachelor’s degree in History from Queen’s University and an MBA from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

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Some highlights from Kevin’s interview with Arjan include:

  • How Nature’s Path integrates their values throughout their supply stream, supporting over 120,000 acres of organic production internationally and sourcing local where feasible

  • Understanding that the organization is not just there to serve the customer but to serve all who are part of the organization, Nature’s Path demonstrates their care for their people by offering great benefits and work environment that includes spaces to garden or meditate

  • Nature’s Path recently met their goal to become Zero waste certified in all facilities (only cereal company to do this)

  • An example of “corporate venturing,” the Seed to Sprout program at Nature’s Path has invested in three organic food companies to support entrepreneurs

  • Arjan shares his thoughts on going beyond organic farming toward regenerative organic farming

 

Resources:

Videos:

People:

Organizations

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is a co-founder and  partner with LIFT Economy, the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.