Reference no: EM132214452

Please Read the following article: PATAONIA: DRIVING SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION BY EMBRACING TENSIONS. (Pertinent information is below)

Durable Water Repellent

By 2015, one of Patagonia’s (and the industry’s) pressing environmental, health, and supply chain problems was the use of DWRs on outerwear such as jackets. Conventional DWR treatments involved the surface application of a long chain of fluorocarbons (such as C8) onto a fabric that were highly effective and durable, but that produced by-products that were toxic and persistent in the environment (in animals and humans). C8 was a type of fluorocarbon or PFC that was petroleum-based and used in various other consumer products such as nonstick cookware, paints and coatings, and stain-release treatments for carpet. Patagonia was not aware of any links between increased fluorocarbons such as C8 in the body due to skin contact from its clothing. “But because we are concerned about the persistence of these chemicals in the environment, we have been working to find alternatives to two fluorinated compounds: perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which was a by-product of C8.”16 108 CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW 60(1) Companies traditionally used C8 because of its effectiveness—strong, longlasting surface compounds that allowed rain or water to bead up and disperse, essentially waterproofing clothing and jackets, while allowing the fabrics to remain breathable. As Tetsuya Ohara, Patagonia’s Director of Innovation Research, explained, “DWR is so important in outdoor gear because people go to inclement weather like snow or rain and if the gear naturally ‘wets out,’ it reduces human temperature and energy and that can be dangerous.” Both PFOS and PFOA have been identified by preliminary governmentrisk assessments as being consistent with a category of a “likely carcinogen.” PFOS levels have been found in wildlife, and higher levels of PFOS in humans could lead to chronic kidney disease.17 Likewise, PFOA persists indefinitely in the environment and is a toxicant and carcinogen in animals. PFOA has been detected in the blood of more than 98% of the general U.S. population. PFOA has been detected in industrial waste, stain-resistant carpets, carpet-cleaning liquids, house dust, microwave popcorn bags, water, food, some cookware, and Teflon.18 In 2011, a Greenpeace campaign called “Detox” targeted a group of major apparel and footwear brands and retailers around their use of toxic chemicals. In response, the industry came together to form ZDHC, an organization focused on leading the industry toward zero discharge of hazardous chemicals by 2020. Members included Nike, Adidas, H&M, Gap, Puma, and others. However, none of the major outdoor companies initially joined this organization as they argued their performance standards for their clothing and outerwear were too strict to move away completely from PFCs. Legislation, however, soon caught up with the entire industry and took over as the key driver of DWR issues. For example, the European Union has banned PFOS and PFOA. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated a voluntary industry phaseout of PFOA, and the major global fluorochemical companies (eight of them) have agreed to eliminate PFOAs by 2015.19 In the United States, the EPA has banned PFOS since 2000 (except for special uses in aviation, photography, and microelectronics). In 2000, 3M stopped making PFOS and eliminated it from its Scotchgard fabric protector. In 2003, DuPont had class-action lawsuits filed against it for its use of PFOA for Teflon on cookware and was in the process of eliminating PFOA from its products. Australia has issued two alerts on PFOS, recommending use only in essential cases. In June 2005, Sweden proposed a global ban on PFOS. In 2005, the European Commission (EC) issued a proposal for a Directive to restrict the use of PFOS in carpets, textiles, and other clothing. In 2014, Norway banned PFOA in consumer products. NGOs also had an active role in DWR awareness. In 2012, Greenpeace Germany published a report, “Chemistry for Any Weather,” that summarized the findings of two independent labs it commissioned to evaluate the chemical content of outdoor weatherproof clothes by manufacturers such as Patagonia, The North Face, Marmot, and others. The labs found PFCs in all 14 samples and high Patagonia: Driving Sustainable Innovation by Embracing Tensions 109 concentrations of PFOA/C8 (for water resistance) in all samples. Kirsten Brodde of Greenpeace said, There are no safe levels for PFCs; they are intrinsically hazardous and should be eliminated completely by the textile industry. An outdoor industry that draws a picture of itself as being green should stay out of the use of all hazardous chemicals and not try to . . . slow down the process of elimination.20 At the time of the Greenpeace study, Patagonia was in the process of eliminating PFOAs from all of its products by 2015 and converting 40% of its DWR products to shorter chain C6 technology (see below for discussion of C6). In 2015, Greenpeace released another study that found traces of PFCs in the waters of high-altitude lakes around the world, from the Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, Chile, to the Lago di Pilato in the Apennine mountain range in Italy. Greenpeace said its study proved how slowly PFCs break down in the environment. “It is ironic to think that companies who depend on nature for their business willingly release dangerous chemicals into the environment,” said Mirjam Kopp of Greenpeace. “They need to set short-term deadlines for completely eliminating the entire group of PFCs in production processes.”21 Greenpeace praised Puma and Adidas for their “ambitious elimination targets” for PFCs from its clothing through ZDHC. However, Greenpeace felt that The North Face, Columbia, Patagonia, Salewa, and Mammut were not moving quickly enough. Freeman said on NGOs: Greenpeace is really upset that PFCs are showing up in our bodies and the environment. We agree that this is not okay. I’m appreciative of what PETA and Greenpeace bring because they bring awareness and it sparks ingenuity, but it can be a painful process. Dwyer said, DWR is definitely an instance where innovation had to happen in the wrong way, where all of a sudden there was extreme scrutiny on a key component of everyone’s product line. In real life, I prefer that we saw this coming and when the legislation happens, we’re already doing the right thing. That’s our strategy today.

C8 Alternatives

For years, Patagonia has been researching and testing fluorocarbon-free chemistries (a dozen or more) such as waxes and silicones that also allow water to bead up and disperse versus saturating/wetting out. However, according to the company’s blog, waxes and silicones are easily contaminated by dirt and oil and rapidly lose their effectiveness, reducing the effective lifetime of a garment. The short life span is of special concern. 110 CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW 60(1) A rain shell that stops preventing saturation functionally degrades into a wind shell long before the garment itself wears out. The garment must be replaced more frequently, which constitutes its own environmental problem. Every replacement garment comes with its own environmental cost in energy and water used and waste and greenhouse gases generated. So sacrificing garment life is not an option.22 Many fashion companies were also “actively pursuing non-fluorinated applications,” according to Nike’s John Frazier.23 Dow Chemical provided siliconebased treatments and more limited performance solutions such as wax and oilbased finishes. But again, companies such as Nike did not have the same weather performance requirements as Patagonia or The North Face. And these treatments were not “new” innovations, but rather recycled ones from decades ago that had been phased out when PFCs first became popular. Very large chemical companies such as Dow and DuPont (through its Chemours spin-off), along with specialty chemical companies such as Huntsman, were also researching more effective DWR alternatives. To date, however, their solutions have been chemical-based such as shorter chain fluorocarbon-based polymers like C6 (also sprayed on), but with by-products that broke down faster in the environment and had “less potential toxicity over time to humans, wildlife, and fish.”24 According to Patagonia, the problem was that outerwear using C6 was not as effective and in torrential rains, for example, wet out more quickly. Robert Buck at DuPont said that companies like his were focused on shorter chain polymers, but acknowledged that questions about their toxicity remained.25 Ohara said, “For chemical companies, this is their business—they have to sell chemicals so the approach to solve problems is to always use chemicals.” Over the past four years, Patagonia has transitioned its product line to short-chain DWRs, and by spring 2016, 100% of its line will be transitioned.26 According to Patagonia, The majority of our current products that are treated with DWR now use C6 fluorocarbon-based water repellents. These are PFOS-free, but PFOA is still detectable on the treated fabric at around 100 ppb (parts per billion). One ppb is comparable to one second in 32 years. It’s a very small amount.27 Matthias Foessel, CEO of Beyond Surface Technologies (BST; see below), said, The problem that I see is that moving from C8 to C6 is not solving the issue. If you’re really concerned about PFOA and if your intent is to go PFOA-free, then your only choice is to walk away from PFCs entirely.28 Since switching over to shorter chain chemistries for its DWR treatments, Patagonia has not heard any negative feedback (its Torrentshell jacket, for Patagonia: Driving Sustainable Innovation by Embracing Tensions 111 example, was switched over to shorter chain chemistries in the 2014 line), according to Dwyer: I actually expected to have heard from customers by now, but we haven’t heard many performance-related complaints yet. Part of it is that we spent seven years working with key suppliers on our fabrics at the mills doing the trials with the chemistry to make sure we were sacrificing the least in terms of performance. We’re actually pretty happy with the quality right now.

1) What is the tensions for patagonia around dwr and who are stakeholders associated with each of these tensions?