Companies that are getting it right: how Patagonia, Costco, and Bob’s Red Mill are playing a different game
Here at GASLIT, we talk a lot about large corporations that are manufacturing harm, covering up the damage they do, and adding insult to injury by blaming us.
But there ARE large, national companies that are getting it right (there are even more small, local companies that are getting it right - more on them in a future post!).
These companies are playing a different game - one where profits don’t always get put above people and the planet (and let’s be real, those profits most corporations prioritize above all else primarily accrue only to their C-suite/top shareholders).
So who are these companies getting it right, and what are they doing?
Here are a few examples:
1. Patagonia
An outdoor apparel company, Patagonia has long been an example of a responsible business: They’ve taken care of their employees (with onsite child care at their headquarters and primary distribution center, 100% of medical premiums covered, and paid activism hours). They’ve stopped doing things - and started doing new things - specifically to uphold their social and environmental values (even when it cuts into their profits). They’ve built environmental and animal welfare responsibility programs to guide how they make their materials and products. They’ve shared information about suppliers across their supply chain and gone to great lengths to ensure that their suppliers’ practices align with Patagonia’s values. They’ve supported grassroots environmental activism and advocacy.
And in 2022, they took their commitment to a whole new level. In 2022, Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, shared in this letter that “Earth is now our only shareholder”. He went on to outline their truly unicorn approach in the world of corporate America:
Instead of “going public,” you could say we’re “going purpose.” Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth.
Here’s how it works: 100% of the company’s voting stock transfers to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, created to protect the company’s values; and 100% of the nonvoting stock had been given to the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature. The funding will come from Patagonia: Each year, the money we make after reinvesting in the business will be distributed as a dividend to help fight the crisis.
2. Costco
Membership warehouse club retailer, Costco, is known for paying its workers well (and recently increased hourly pay to more than $30 for most workers – though notably, this increase came in response to pressure from Costco’s unionized workers, who voted to authorize a strike) and promoting from within (Costco’s current CEO started his career as a forklift driver for Price Club, which then merged with Costco). These are aspects of a broader “obsession with culture” that Costco’s founder and first CEO cultivated intentionally. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Costco’s turnover rate is only 8% – in comparison to 60% in the retail industry writ large.
In addition to their employees, Costco aims to ensure a good experience for their members as well, “carrying a generous return policy on top-quality products, always passing on the savings of purchasing those products at wholesale on to the customers, [and] spurning the use of misleading advertisements”. Costco’s founder has shared a story about a time when the store sold Calvin Klein men’s jeans for $29.99 a pair. The jeans flew off the shelves as fast as they could stock them. The company then secured a deal with Calvin Klein to pay just $22.99 per pair. Costco could have kept the price to consumers the same, since they were clearly happy to buy the jeans at that price. But that’s not what they did. Here’s how Costco’s founder explained it:
We pass the savings on to the customer, every time. Do you know how tempting it is to make another $7 on a pair? But once you do it, it’s like taking heroin. You can’t stop.
3. Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods
Bob and Charlee Moore started Bob’s Red Mill in 1978, selling stone mill-ground whole grains. Over time, the company grew into selling over 400 whole grain products. In 2010, Bob established an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, effectively “handing over the keys to his 209 employees” (as the plan went into effect, by 2020, the company has become 100% employee owned).
In discussing his decision in 2010, Bob told an interviewer he’d gotten “countless buy-out offers over the years, but he couldn’t envision selling the business to a stranger.”
Here’s Bob in his own words:
It's the only business decision that I could make. I don't think there's anybody worthy to run this company but the people who built it. I have employees with me right now that have been with me for 30 years. They just were committed to staying with me now and they're going to own the company…
There's a lot of negative stuff going into business today. It's a good old basic Bible lesson -- love of money is the root of all evil. And unfortunately, our entire philosophy today is get all the money you can and whatever way you can. It's caused many corporations to bite off more than they can chew. And it causes people to do a lot of things just for money that they feel in their hearts is not the right thing to do.
I absolutely love the quotes from the founders of these companies - they’re “going purpose”, they’re staying away from the heroin-like temptation of chasing more and more profit, they’re refusing to do things just for money that simply aren’t the right thing to do.
And I think it’s notable that these kinds of companies are also a lot more likely to push back when things - whether internal or external to the company - go against their values.
Patagonia’s current CEO has been outspoken against recent EPA rollbacks of climate protections and called out the Trump administration and its “powerful fossil fuel benefactors” for the harm they’re causing.
Earlier this year, as other retailers ended their diversity programs, Costco’s board voted unanimously to ask its shareholders to reject an anti-DEI measure (which they then did reject). The board noted “our commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary”.
All that said, let me be clear, I’m not saying these companies are perfect. No company (and none of us, either) are perfect.
But I do think these companies are prioritizing something over profits alone - whether that be their employees’ well-being, the planet, or something else.
And in today’s corporate world, that’s far too rare. So it’s worth celebrating. It’s worth seeking out and supporting companies that care about something more than they care about wealth and power and whose culture and actions (not just their words!) actually reflect that.