Patagonia clothing company is a designer of outdoor clothing and gear. We make organic cotton clothing, sportswear, travel clothing, technical Regulator® and Synchilla® fleece and Capilene® underwear. We also have children's clothing, kids; apparel and baby clothes.

Patagonia wants to be in business for a good long time, and a healthy planet is necessary for a healthy business. We want to act responsibly, live within our means and leave behind not only a habitable planet, but an Earth whose beauty and biodiversity is protected for those who come after us. We think that business can inspire solutions to the environmental crisis, and that we owe those that work in the textile industry fair labor practices and safe working conditions.

Growing the Grassroots
In 1973 a young man stopped by our offices to make a pitch. He called himself, ambitiously, "Friends of the Ventura River," and his plan was to restore the filthy trickle near our headquarters to its former, wild self. A lone activist with monumental goals, he envisioned fish life, shore birds and untainted riffles in a channel ruined by pollution. He gave us hope. We gave him desk space.

By 1985, we formalized our support of environmental activism by committing 10% of our pre-tax profits to grassroots environmental groups. Later, we increased that to at least 1% of sales annually. As a company that uses resources and produces waste, we recognize our impact on the environment and feel a responsibility to give back. For us, it's not charity or traditional philanthropy: it's part of the cost of doing business.

We give at the grassroots level to innovative groups mobilizing their communities to take action. We fund activists who take radical and strategic steps to protect habitat, oceans and waterways, wilderness and biodiversity. This is our niche: supporting people working on the frontlines of the environmental crisis. Since the program began, we have given over $49 million in grants and in-kind donations to more than 1,000 organizations.

Our Common Waters

Every living thing has the right to clean water.

Imagine the path taken by a drop of rain from the time it hits the ground to when it reaches a river, ground water, or the ocean. Any pollutant it picks up on its journey can become part of the problem.

Patagonia's final segment of its Our Common Waters campaign will focus on clean water and its opposite - water pollution. We'll spotlight hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the tar sands/pipeline controversy, agriculture pollution and something that strikes close to home, textile pollution. And, as we have throughout this campaign, we'll connect biodiversity and clean water and focus on actions that protect freshwater biodiversity.

Clean water is under assault. The latest EPA National Water Quality Inventory indicates that agriculture is the leading contributor to water quality impairments, degrading 60 percent of impaired river miles and half of impaired lake acreage. In the United States alone, agricultural pollution accounts for 60 percent of contamination in rivers and lakes.

Patagonia's own industry is not immune. Right after agriculture, textile manufacturing is the next largest polluter worldwide. "Causing no unnecessary harm" is part of our mission statement at Patagonia. And nowhere is that more important than reducing our impacts on our freshwater resources. We began working with bluesign® technologies in 2000. bluesign® is an independent group of chemists, based in Switzerland, who audit the energy, water and chemical usage of "system partners." System partners are primarily textile mills and finishers, which pay bluesign® to help them achieve continuous, long-term environmental improvement and other, often cost-saving, efficiencies.

Any fabric you see that's bluesign® approved is manufactured using best practices in the efficient use of energy and water, consumer safety, water emissions, air emissions, and occupational health and safety.

In 2011 we set a goal to use only bluesign® approved fabrics by our fall 2015 product season, and we're under way. Our Capilene® and Merino products will be made of 100% bluesign® approved fabrics beginning fall 2013.

How to Get Here

From the east: I-80 West to "1300 East/Sugarhouse" exit. Right on 1300E. Left on Wilmington Ave. Left on Highland Dr. Store is on right, 1 1/2 blocks down.

From the west: I-80 East to "1300 East/Sugarhouse" exit. Left on 1300E. Left on Wilmington Ave. Left on Highland Dr. Store is on right, 1 1/2 blocks down.

From the north: I-15 South to I-80 East. I-80 East to "1300 East/Sugarhouse" exit. Left on 1300E. Left on Wilmington Ave. Left on Highland Dr. Store is on right, 1 1/2 blocks down.

From the south: I-15 North to I-80 East. I-80 East to "1300 East/Sugarhouse" exit. Left on 1300E. Left on Wilmington Ave. Left on Highland Dr. Store is on right, 1 1/2 blocks down.