Our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) are our front line of communication with Patagonia fanatics far and wide. The crew here at our Call Center in Reno, NV are at it seven days a week, taking orders, helping with returns, and most importantly, answering the astonishing range of questions our customers fire at us. Like flocks of swirling swallows or shimmering schools of tropical fish, our customers swoop in with mysteriously synchronized concerns and questions on a regular basis, prompting the need for ready answers. Times like these, nothing would be more handy than magically beaming knowledge out into the ether. Our very own Old School is here to do just that. He's stepped back from the front lines to answer some of these popular questions, straight from the trenches.
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Patagonia has a well-deserved reputation for being extremely picky about what materials go into our products. Often, the materials we choose are exactly the same as those used by our competitors. But just as often, we insist on different materials even if we have to encourage our suppliers to make the material we're looking for. Below are two common questions we receive about natural fibers we use in our clothing; one is virtually identical industry-wide and the other is a fabric we insisted on tweaking because of environmental concerns.

So why do you use down?

In the outdoor clothing industry down insulation is ubiquitous. Almost every company sells a puffy down jacket and I often wonder if these other companies get the same ethical questions we get about using down. We continually find ourselves fielding questions about how a progressive company like Patagonia can, in good conscience, use down. The answer to that is simple, Patagonia’s mission statement begins with "Build the best product…" For us to do this we need to use the highest quality materials available. Right now when it comes to insulation, down has no equal; it has the highest warmth-to-weight ratio of any insulation and is highly compressible as well. Both properties are highly prized attributes in mountain clothing. That said, we do believe in the humane treatment of animals, and the geese that provide our down are no exception.

It's important to remember that down is a by-product of the food industry. Goose is a popular meat in Europe and as it turns out, selling the down from geese production is a profitable secondary benefit for the geese farmers. It also turns out that producing high quality goose down is not at odds with producing high quality goose meat. Healthy birds produce high-quality meat as well as high-quality down so it is in the farmer’s interest to have a healthy population of geese. Geese are fed natural grains, corn oats, and wheat and occasionally soy for protein. To our knowledge, the only geese that are force-fed are those being raised for goose liver. Geese being raised for both food and down are not force-fed because that produces substandard, oily down.

Raising geese is surprisingly chemical free. The geese are vaccinated at 2 weeks old and from then on they’re generally disease-free. The geese are raised without pesticides or insecticides and aside from some possible fertilizer on the grass, that’s it.

The most controversial aspect of goose down is down collection. For years, the prevailing wisdom was that down collected while geese are molting was harmless and painless to the animals, so we used down that was available from Hungary, which was likely sourced both as a by-product from meat production and from live-plucking. We've since learned to question the prevailing wisdom. While we cannot confirm if live plucking is indeed cruel, we felt it was best to avoid contributing to a contentious issue. As of March 2009, we made the decision to limit our use of down to only that which is truly a by-product of the food industry and developed a certification process to ensure this. Down that conforms to this certification can be found in products that will be available in stores in October of 2009.

Despite the above–or maybe because of it–some of our customers will have a problem with the use of goose down as insulation. For those who prefer to avoid animal-sourced materials, we offer a full line of products using PrimaLoft® synthetic insulation.

For more info on our down products, you can check out my previous post here.

ED NOTE (April 5, 2011) – In the above copy, we make the following statement:  "To our knowledge, the only geese that are force-fed are those being raised for goose liver. Geese being raised for both food and down are not force-fed because that produces substandard, oily down." Since writing this piece back in September of 2009, there have been new developments in the sourcing of our down. In December of 2010 we were accused by the European animal rights organization Four Paws of using down from live-plucked geese. While their accusations were incorrect (our certification process ensures we source exclusively non live-plucked down) this accusation did prompt us to reexamine our down supply chain. The results of this investigation showed that some of what I reported is incorrect.

Our latest efforts to investigate our down source reveal that there is actually no difference in the quality of down produced for meat vs. that which comes from geese that are specifically force-fed in the traditional methods of foie gras production. This of course raised new questions, which we delve into here: http://www.thecleanestline.com/2011/04/lowdown-on-down.html.
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Why do you use chlorine-free wool in your merino wool baselayer line?

One of the reasons that Patagonia was a little late getting in to the wool baselayer market wasn’t that we weren’t convinced of its benefits, that’s a no-brainer. Instead the problem was the process required to make the wool both machine-washable and comfortable against the skin. Even the finest merino wool fiber in its natural state is covered with tiny barbed scales. These scales not only make the wool itchy, when machin- washed those scales interlock, resulting in shrinkage. The most common method of processing wool is a chlorine-based process that completely removes the scales. The result is wool that doesn’t shrink or felt and is soft against the skin. Unfortunately this chlorine-based process sends large amounts of chlorine-based organohalogens into the environment. This process is so toxic that it is actually illegal in the U.S., so the treatment must be done overseas. This was unacceptable to us, so we worked with wool suppliers to find a safer process called the slow-wash process.

Our slow-wash systems uses ozone to remove only the barbed tips of the scales rather than the whole scale. Because this is a closed system none of the ozone escapes into the environment. This not only gives us a toxin-free process, it has other benefits as well. Chlorine-based processing not only removes the scales, it also removes much of the lanolin which is the oil that makes wool water repellent and odor resistant. Chlorine-based processing also damages the fibers to the point that they often need to be coated with a polymer resin to make them strong enough to be woven into fibers. Our slow-wash process preserves the natural lanolin and because much of the scale is left intact, the wool remains strong enough to be woven into fibers without the need for a polymer coating. We believe our slow-wash process is not only better for the environment, it also produces a better product. We think it was worth the wait and hope you do as well.

If you missed my post about visiting one of our wool suppliers in New Zealand you can read it here.

Another common type of question we get is the “Why don’t you use ____?” question. I have to admit I often have these questions myself. Sometimes you read about a cool new fabric that sounds super green or maybe just really innovative and I wonder why we're not using it. Of course I’m not the first one to wonder about new fabrics. Our fabric developers are at the forefront of fabric technology and every time I ask about something that sounds new and cool, it’s old news to them, having already researched and tested it, sometimes years before. And, just like Paul Harvey says, there’s always “the rest of story.” In my next post I’ll have some answers to a couple of our most common “Why don’t you use___?” questions we frequently hear on the phones. Stay tuned. . .

[Some of the sheep that provide the wool for Patagonia products. Dingleburn Station, NZ. Photo: Ken LaRussa.]

The post From the Trenches series – Why do you use… ? appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

We test our gear on a variety of levels. Our athletes and ambassadors are responsible for putting the latest designs and fabrics through the paces before we'll add a new product to our lineup. But just because something reaches our shelves doesn't mean testing is over. Once a new item shows up in our catalogs, our Customer Service staff gets busy ground-truthing the latest offerings. They know the questions our customers will be asking, and turn that attention to our gear. _____________________________________

Product Report: Nano Puff, Merino 1 T-Shirt, Nine Trails Jacket, Simple Guide Pants, Lightweight Travel Tote.
Activity: Hiking – Jones-White Trail, Carson Range of the Sierra Nevada
Tested by: Patagonia Customer Service reps OldSchool, Cory E., Andrea W., Dave S., Kevin L., and Megan B.

Twice a year our happy little work group gets to cut work and take a day to test gear, get a bit of exercise and share some lies. It had been beautiful weather for weeks prior so of course once the appointed day arrived it was howling windy. We had planned to climb Mount Rose but we were overruled by our boss Tammy who was quite worried about being blown off the summit, ripping her Nine Trails Jacket and mussing her hair. The rest of us love being pelted mercilessly by 80 mph winds, but in the name of group harmony we all acquiesced to a somewhat easier (and lower) nine mile hike known as the Jones-Whites Loop. There’s no such thing as a free hike here at Patagonia so all of us were required to fill in our coworkers on just what we chose to wear…Below are some excerpts from these reports:

First me:

Gearing up for any wilderness trip requires the utmost in planning and this trip was no exception. From my vast array of old and new Patagonia stuff, some dating back to the previous century I picked clothing suitable for a summit bid. I went with the Merino 1 T-Shirt, quite possibly the best athletic t I’ve ever worn. It's  light airy, quick drying and incredibly

[Whites Creek, Mt. Rose Wilderness, Nevada. Photo: Ken Larussa]

funk-fighting; it has quickly become my go-to t shirt. On top of that I wore a Cap 4 Zip Neck which provides a light insulating layer. And then, of course, the Houdini (this will return this spring), which is one of those pieces you wonder how you ever lived without. I also wore the Gi-II Pants and the Mid Weight Hiking Socks. The Gi-IIs are an awesomely simple nylon hiking pant. Since it looked like it might get cold I kept a Nano Puff and LW Ski Hat stashed in the bottom of the pack. The trail is below tree line but still can be windy in spots so I found myself alternately putting on and taking off the Houdini.

Cory’s our resident big mountain skier, surfer, mountain biker and all-around cool dude:

should own two of these just in case they lose one. I'm a huge fan of the Lightweight Travel Tote as well. It's just so practical for so many different activities from going to grab groceries, to going to the beach, or going for quick simple hikes. I used that pack to tote around my lunch, camera, and extra layers, and it worked perfectly. All of my layers worked out just fine for the activity at hand.

We experienced a few different types of weather and temps while we were out on the hike. In my opinion, layering, and layering the right combination, is crucial to your outdoor experience. Feeling comfortable and having fun is the name of the game, so always remember to dress for success.

Andrea is a long time runner who has only lately discovered the wonders of hiking in own back yard:

This was a fantastic hike with great views and wonderful company. Here’s what I wore: Gi II Zip-off Pants These are a very comfortable hiking pant and  I like the idea of having the option of shorts when you need them. I especially like that the shorts inseam isn't too short. For a shell I took The Nine Trails Jacket which is super lightweight and compressible. It has a very comfortable fit and the longer cut in the back keeps the jacket from riding up when wearing a back pack but I wish it had a better pocket closure, twice I've had to go back to look for things that have fallen out. For insulation I took a Stretch Velocity Zip-Neck and I really like it! It's warm and great in windy conditions (It was windy this day my friends). It's close fitting and the perfect length. I also wore the Cap 1 Scoop Neck and I love it, it's comfortable, breathable and keeps me dry when I'm sweating..

Dave, one of our newest reps is a snowboarder but has only been recently indoctrinated into the wonders of technical layering:

My first field day at Patagonia was definitely amazing; great people and awesome scenery. I wore the Men's Active Boxers, Capilene ®1 Bottoms, R1 Vest (no longer available), a Shelter Stone Jacket from the demo closet and a cotton t shirt which was a big mistake.  I quickly found out why cotton kills, not only did the shirt become soaking wet but so did my vest and jacket and every time I took my backpack off I would instantly freeze. So, lesson learned and I will heed Old School's warnings from now on.  As a side note, I went hunting about two weeks ago and wore the Capilene®1 T and the Merino 3 over that and could not have been more pleased, totally different experience and I will never wear a cotton t again!

Kevin’s been with Patagonia for years and is a bike aficionado and telemark skier:

We were going to hike up Mt Rose but the weather took a turn toward the blustery, or as they say here in Nevada, it was a little breezy that day. We decided instead to hike the Jones-Whites Loop, out of Galena Creek Park. It was still really windy in places but being mostly in the trees we were pretty sheltered. It's an  amazing place this here Nevada, not what most folks think it is, especially up in the Mount Rose Wilderness.

 I was wearing the mighty Cap 3 Crew and Silkweight Boxers (now Mens's Active Classic Boxers) as a base. I have to say here that these boxers are little older and I bought some new ones and I am just amazed how much extra fabric they contain. I''ve fielded a few calls from folks who want to know what is up with this and when will the boxers be "normal" again. I also had my trusty R1 Pullover, one of my favorite things we make and these are great. For pants I used my old second generation Talus pants which probably compare to say the Simple Guide Pants. My only complaint about those is the lack of a fly (the Talus, not the Simple Guides), otherwise they rock. For a shell I took along and sometimes used my old Dragonfly Pullover otherwise known to the wags as the "Sweatbag" (this was replaced by the far more breathable Houdini)  but I like it. It packs small and light and keeps the wind out.

Megan's another one of our new reps; an avid rafter, she's best know around here for running Maytag Rapid, in an inner tube.

After many warm, unseasonably sunny days, I awoke the morning of my first field day with my Patagonia team to a cold, windy “fall has arrived” kind of day. What to wear, how to layer? Having just started at Patagonia, I have not yet accumulated all the latest and greatest Patagonia has to offer, so I kick it old school. After a couple outfit changes I decided to go for comfort in my Phoenix Capri Tights (no longer available) and opted for a couple different warm layers on top. I have my tried-and-true bio-stretch (the closest available equivalent is the Women's Capilene® 3 Crew) base layer and my Lightweight Endurance Socks too. For my upper layering options, I decided to go with a Cool Weather Zip Neck. I also bought my R4, and in case of a bit of rain I had my Supercell Jacket (now the Rain Shadow). At the lower elevations, my Cool Weather worked very well. Once we started gaining altitude and wind exposure, I went to my R4 and stayed with it for the rest of the day. It was awesome. Not a breath of wind came through, and it was blustering. As always, I was stoked on all my gear. It was a fine hike up to an expansive view complete with a peaceful and wind-protected picnic next to a gurgling, spring-fed creek and a magical moment in a golden grove of aspens.

Recovery is a big part of any athletic endeavor; luckily a nearby establishment offers up suitable comestibles and is not too far from the trailhead. Great hikes demand great nutrition but not being in the mood for dried beans, we opted for The Blind Onion’s pizza and beer, two products highly recommended by climbing legend and fellow Patagonia employee TM Herbert. Our recovery was complete. 

[Above, right – Aspens in the first stages of color-change along the Jones-Whites Loop. Above, left – Doing their best to break away from their desks, Patagonia Customer Service Reps head for the local hills to enjoy a fall hike. Photos: Cory Engles].
  

The post Product Testing – Dressing Right for a Windy Hike appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

We have some great benefits at Patagonia. But none is better than the opportunity to volunteer with environmental groups through our internship program. During my 15 years working as an editor here at our headquarters in Ventura, I’ve gotten to follow wild buffalo in West Yellowstone, see the effects of industrial forestry in Chile, learn about the sagebrush environment in northern Nevada, and most recently, spend two weeks in Patagonia, Argentina, working with The Nature Conservancy on its grasslands project.

Sheep ranching is the most prevalent land use in the Patagonia region, which is three times the size of California and mostly privately owned. Overgrazing is turning its grasslands into desert. To reverse the degradation, preserve biodiverstiy and freshwater resources, Patagonia has partnered with The Nature Conservancy and Ovis XXI, an Argentine company that manages and develops a network of wool producers.

[Above: A gaucho and his border collie head to their flock.]

Together, we’re promoting a sustainable grazing protocol with the goal of conserving 15 million acres of Patagonian grasslands over the next five years. The protocol employs holistic management practices that mimic the historic grazing patterns of migratory guanaco and rhea that are native to the region. By emphasizing high-density grazing followed by adequate recovery time, we are working toward the actual regeneration of grasslands, instead of simply slowing desertification. Patagonia (the company) is using the sustainably sourced merino wool in a number of our products, including merino socks (available now), as well as women’s merino sweaters and all of our merino baselayers (in fall 2013).

In September 2012, I traveled to Patagonia to learn about the grasslands project with the goal of producing a brochure for The Nature Conservancy. Patagonia is a semiarid scrub plateau that covers nearly all of the southern portion of mainland Argentina. With an area of about 260,000 square miles (673,000 square kilometers), it constitutes a vast area of steppe and desert that extends south from latitude 37° to 51° S. Here are some photos from my trip.

Built on the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi, Bariloche is a resort town on the eastern side of the Cordillera with great skiing, fishing, mountain biking, climbing and other outdoor recreation. The Nature Conservancy coordinates its grasslands project from an office in the city.

Local color: Back street Bariloche.

Upon arriving in Bariloche, I received a warm welcome and a thorough briefing from staff at The Nature Conservancy, some of who are pictured here. (L-R) Carlos Fernandez (Project Manager), Gustavo Iglesias and Valeria Bran.

The next day we loaded up The Nature Conservancy’s Hilux and set out on a 1,200-mile road-trip through northern Patagonia visiting sheep ranches.

It was early spring and snow was still falling in the mountains.

Three of our four-person crew: (l-r) Diego Ochoa (The Nature Conservancy), Cristobal Costa (Patagonia Buenos Aires store) and me, Jim Little. The Nature Conservancy’s Gustavo Iglesias (not in the picture) patiently took the photo, drove the truck, expertly described all of the natural history and prepared the mate. Photo: Gustavo Iglesias

Always thinking ahead, Gustavo fills up the thermos with hot water for the next round of mate. Many gas stations in this part of the world have tanks that heat and hold water for their customers’ mate-drinking pleasure.

Yerba mate in one hand, iPhone in the other, Cristobal Costa deftly balances communication devices old and new.

Thousands of miles of dirt roads and barb wire crisscross Patagonia. This road led to Estancia El Cronometro, a 50,000-acre sheep ranch that recently adopted the sustainable grazing protocol.

El Cronometro is owned by a pro soccer player who lives in Chile. Concerned about the environmental health of his ranch, he began working with Ovis XXI last year. Under the sustainable grazing protocol, his sheep are now being managed in such a way that they help to regenerate El Cronometro’s grasslands. There are significant benefits for both the rancher and nature.

Sheep were allowed to graze too long on this patch of Estancia El Cronometro. This is a scene repeated all over Patagonia, home to millions of sheep. Allowed to wander, sheep nibble their favorite grasses right down to the roots. The grasses die or are seriously weakened, and the topsoil held by their roots is carried away by wind and rain. Desertification results. Water runs off instead of soaking into the ground. Less carbon is absorbed. There is not as much forage for native guanaco (a camelid like the llama), choique (a large, flightless bird also known as the lesser rhea) and sheep.

A sheep-eye view of healthier grasses.

Guanaco are native herbivores that can be hard to photograph without a telephoto lens. To best understand the sustainable grazing protocol, imagine Patagonia’s pre-European grasslands in which guanaco and rhea roamed the countryside in large numbers – eating its diverse grasses, defecating, stomping and salivating along the way. They were integral to the health of the ecosystem, and unlike badly managed sheep, they never stayed in one place long enough to overgraze, as predators kept them constantly on the move. Instead of turning grasslands into deserts, they tilled and fertilized the soil, transported seeds and stimulated the growth of grasses.

Though I had always thought of flamigos as a tropical bird, they too share the Patagonian landscape with livestock.

Spring is shearing time in northern Patagonia, and an itinerant crew of shearers was hard at it inside this shed at Estancia El Cronometro. Each bale of wool weighs about 400 lbs.

Merino sheep await shearing. Ovis XXI’s selective breeding program yields the super fine merino wool for Patagonia products.

The shed was a whir of activity. Using shears powered by electric motors, it took these guys about three minutes to defrock a sheep. The sheep don’t appear to enjoy it, but they don’t suffer more than separation anxiety and a few nicks.

Not all wool is equal – some is long and fine, some is short and coarse and some is in between. Here it’s pre-classified before it’s trucked to a facility that washes, combs and sorts it.

Pablo Borrelli, one of the principles of Ovis XXI, fondles the good stuff.

On most ranches in Patagonia, sheep are raised for both their wool and meat.

As his workers sheared away in another building, the crew leader prepared lunch the old-fashion way. Despite his steely gaze and the glint of his oversized knife, he was generous with his lamb sandwiches and graciously agreed to pose for a portrait.

Separated from their wool, sheep go back to grazing.

And we go back to counting sheep.

The post Wooly in Patagonia appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

Update 8/17/15: Thank you to everyone who commented on this story. Your feedback is very important to us. Please see our follow-up post on this issue for the latest news.

PETA has shown us video footage from within the Ovis 21 farm network that supplies merino wool for Patagonia’s baselayers and insulation. It is as disturbing as anything PETA puts out. Three minutes long, the video contains graphic footage depicting inhumane treatment of lambs and sheep; of castration; of tail docking (the removal of a sheep’s tail); and slaughter of lambs for their meat. We’ll go into detail below.

It’s especially humbling to acknowledge responsibility for the practices shown because the impetus for our original involvement in this project was, in addition to restoring grassland, improvement of animal welfare. In 2005, we became aware (through PETA’s campaign against Australian wool growers) of the painful practice of mulesing sheep to reduce the damage from flystrike. We worked to stop sourcing wool on the open (and untraceable) market as quickly as we could, and even delayed a major product launch of merino baselayers until we could find reliable sources for non-mulesed wool in New Zealand and Australia.

PETA has targeted Patagonia because it holds us responsible for practices done in our name: wool from the farms shown in the video is spun, knit and sewn into clothing that bears our label. We accept responsibility for everything done by our suppliers at any level, but especially in this case. Beginning in 2011, we embarked on a close partnership with Ovis 21 to develop a radical new way to grow wool—one that regenerates rather than depletes grassland, keeps alive a way of life in the Patagonia region, and produces wool of unprecedented quality for our next-to-skin clothing. This has been a significant and engaging project for us.

When we began our initial discussions with Ovis 21, we were happy to learn that blowfly does not inhabit Patagonia, so mulesing is not an issue there. We were also pleased to learn the Ovis 21 farmers took steps to ensure that animals have sufficient fleece to maintain warmth through the winter. In addition, Argentina does not permit the export of live sheep, a dangerous practice. And we noted that to achieve certification by Ovis 21, participating ranchers must adhere to strict protocols for grazing and land management; flock improvement; and shearing, all of which favorably influence animal welfare. We have worked closely with Ovis 21 on its progress toward holistic grazing; however, beyond verifying that no mulesing occurs, we have not audited its animal-welfare practices and were unaware of the issues raised in the video.

PETA does not believe in the use of animals for any human purpose; this is a belief we respect but do not share. Nevertheless, PETA plays an important role in raising awareness of harmful practices involving animals, and we listen when legitimate concerns are uncovered, even if we become a target of their activism.

For our part, we do offer alternatives to down and wool for our vegan friends and customers. In addition, we’ve devoted considerable resources toward the development and implementation of the world’s most stringent standard to ensure that goose and duck down come from animals that have been neither live-plucked nor force fed to produce foie gras. Our requirements were incorporated by the independent certification body NSF International into its Global Traceable Down Standard.

We’ve also been working on wool. In early 2014, we began working collaboratively with numerous other brands and the Textile Exchange to develop the forthcoming Responsible Wool Standard for treating sheep and lambs that meets 21^st century moral standards for the ethical treatment of animals. It is our hope that this global standard, when completed, will protect animal welfare, influence best practices, ensure traceability, and ultimately give consumers clear and trustworthy information that will allow them to make responsible choices. PETA was invited by the Textile Exchange to join this process, but declined. The process did include the participation of other animal-welfare organizations.

Two practices highlighted in the video, it should be noted, are standard across the wool industry, for good reason. Castrating select members of the flock helps keep it manageable and eliminates overcrowding, while tail docking reduces instances of infection in sheep and facilitates hygiene. What’s critical is that these procedures be done humanely, in a way governed by enforceable, uniform standards.

For those who are interested, you can watch the video here (warning: graphic footage). We are not immune to shocking images. There is no excuse for violent shearing methods and inhumane slaughter. We are investigating the practices shown. We will work with Ovis 21 to make needed corrections and improvements, and report back to our customers and the public on the steps we will take.

We apologize for the harm done in our name; we will keep you posted.

Timeline of Patagonia’s efforts to build a more responsible wool supply chain

February 2005
We learn about the painful mulesing process as a result of a PETA campaign against Australian wool growers, which also decries the “live export” of animals (shipping and selling of live sheep from Australia to the Middle East for fresh consumption).

2008
We begin to move our wool fiber source from purchase on the conventional open market, where wool is untraceable and mulesed, to non-mulesed regions in New Zealand and certain specific Australian supply chains where the practice does not occur. This requires delaying the introduction of our wool baselayer program until we had a traceable supply chain in New Zealand and Australia where we could be sure mulesing wasn’t used.

Fall 2008
We launch our Merino Performance Baselayer line, sourced from non-mulesed sheep in New Zealand.

November/December 2011
Our materials and environmental teams visit Ovis 21 network farms in the Patagonia region of Argentina to determine the viability of nominating yarn from their program in order to a) support an important grasslands conservation effort and b) maintain our policy of avoiding the mulesing of sheep in our supply chain.

Because blowfly infestations do not occur in Argentina, we confirmed mulesing is not occurring but did not audit the farms specifically for other animal welfare concerns. We are aware that tail docking, which reduces instances of infection in sheep and facilitates hygiene, is occurring. We do not explore castration practices.

Fall 2011
We move our Merino Performance Baselayer program to Australian traceable, non-mulesed wool.

2012
We continue with planning, quality testing, volume, and supply chain trials surrounding the Ovis 21 wool—adopting their fiber into more of our products over time.

Fall 2012
We introduce Ovis 21 wool in all of our socks and some baselayers.

February 2014
We begin work as part of a public task force on the industry approach to a Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), led by the Textile Exchange. The standard will ensure a responsible, consistent approach to treating sheep and lambs that meets 21^st century moral standards of the ethical treatment of animals. It is our hope that this global standard, when completed, will protect animal welfare, influence best practices, ensure traceability, and ultimately give consumers clear and trustworthy information that will allow them to make responsible choices.

For Patagonia and the Ovis 21 network, RWS will emphasize animal welfare as a clear priority alongside grasslands restoration.

2014
We convert the entire Merino Performance Baselayer line to Ovis 21 wool.

We begin moving to correct the small part of our wool that is still bought on the open market (some wool hats, and the wool lining of our wetsuits) by changing suppliers.

Winter/Spring 2015
Through our Social and Environmental Responsibility team, Patagonia continues to help lead the industry effort to develop the Responsible Wool Standard—participating in the Textile Exchange Working Group Steering Committee.

Summer 2015
We hold several internal meetings to decide how to begin the work of implementing the Responsible Wool Standard in anticipation of its completion in 2016.

August 2015
PETA releases a video containing graphic footage depicting inhumane treatment of lambs and sheep; of castration; of tail docking; and slaughter of lambs for their meat.

While we previously understood the need to adopt a strict standard to ensure animal welfare and worked toward that goal, we were not aware of any animal welfare issues with Ovis 21 farms until now. We begin an urgent investigation into the practices shown in PETA’s video and commit to working with Ovis 21 to make needed improvements, reporting back to our customers and the public on steps we are taking.

Overview of Ovis 21 protocols involving animal welfare

To be certified as Ovis 21 Sustainable Wool, ranchers must adhere to strict protocols for grazing and land management; flock improvement; and shearing—three pillars that all include major provisions to ensure animal welfare.

In short, these standards stipulate:

• Sheep are bred in natural grasslands.
• There is no mulesing.
• No antibiotics or hormones are used.
• Medical treatments are limited to vaccines and piretroids to control external parasites.
• There is no “live export” of animals.
• Castration and tail docking, industry standard practices that promote responsible flock management and hygiene, are done at an early age with techniques designed to minimize pain.

In detail, the three pillars contain the following provisions:

1. GRASS Standard  

Land management is a key issue for animal welfare. With our adaptive management, and principally by using holistic planned grazing, we achieve the following outcomes:

• Produce under extensive open paddocks, in conditions that mimic natural grazing and recreate the herbivore-predator relationship (no confinement or artificial feeding).
• Increase the forage available, and ensure that every animal has enough feed for the whole year.
• Increase grassland biodiversity, which improves the quality of the diet.
• Increase the manager skills and attention to be responsible for the animals.
• Risk reduction and better management in case of drought or heavy snow that may cause animal losses.
• Better water supply and distribution.
• Use of guard dogs to help to avoid predation by foxes and pumas in a friendly manner with the predator.

2. Flock Improvement Standard

• Breed open face, plain-bodied animals, which are better adapted for extensive grazing systems. Open faces ensure clear vision throughout the year, and correlate with fertility and fitness.
• Breed for high fat deposition that correlates with the ability to survive and breed under climatic stress conditions.
• Breed solely using natural methods (no artificial gene manipulation)

3. Wool Classing and Shearing Standards

• Comply with Argentina’s National Standard in all procedures involving shearing, classing and packing of wool (above the standard for advanced flocks).
• Shear using snow combs or blades to reduce cold stress and leave more wool on the skin in order to increase insulation.

The post PETA’s Wool Video [Updated] appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

Dear Friends,

We’ve spent the past several days looking deep into our wool supply chain, shocked by the disturbing footage of animal cruelty that came to light last week. Patagonia’s partnership with Ovis 21 has been a source of pride because of the program’s genuine commitment to regenerating the grassland ecosystem, but this work must come equally with respectful and humane treatment of the animals that contribute to this endeavor.

The most shocking portion of PETA’s video shows the killing of animals for human consumption. Like those in the Ovis 21 network, most commercial-scale ranches that produce wool from sheep also produce meat. What’s most important is that we apply strong and consistent measures to ensure animals on ranches that supply wool for products bearing the Patagonia name are treated humanely, whether during shearing or slaughter. We took some important steps to protect animals in partnering with Ovis 21, but we failed to implement a comprehensive process to assure animal welfare, and we are dismayed to witness such horrifying mistreatment.

In light of this, we’ve made a frank and open-eyed assessment of the Ovis program. Our conclusion: it is impossible to ensure immediate changes to objectionable practices on Ovis 21 ranches, and we have therefore made the decision that we will no longer buy wool from them. This is a difficult decision, but it’s the right thing to do.

Re-building our wool program—with a partner that can ensure a strong and consistent approach to animal welfare, while also fostering healthy grasslands—will be a significant challenge. However, we reject the notion that cruelty is essential to wool production, despite what PETA claims. Patagonia will continue to make products from wool because of its unique performance attributes. We will continue to sell products made from the wool we’ve already purchased. And we will continue to offer excellent synthetic alternatives for those who prefer them, while constantly pushing to innovate and invest in new materials and better supply chains. But Patagonia will not buy wool again until we can assure our customers of a verifiable process that ensures the humane treatment of animals.

We will also continue our efforts, initiated in 2014, to lead in the industry’s development of strong, new verifiable standards for wool production we can all be proud of. We will take this as an opportunity to push even harder for the strongest possible animal welfare standards to be integrated into the forthcoming Responsible Wool Standard.

We apologize for the harm done in our name. We will continue to update you on our progress to do better.

Rose Marcario
CEO Patagonia

The post Patagonia to Cease Purchasing Wool from Ovis 21 appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

Note: As of March 2017, Red Pine Land and Livestock is not a Patagonia supplier and their wool is not in our products.

Over the past 10 months, we have been working diligently to develop a new wool supply chain that reflects high, and verifiable, standards for both animal welfare and land management. We’ve now reached some important milestones, and we’d like to update our customers on what we have accomplished so far and what we have yet to accomplish.

Background

In 2011, we partnered with The Nature Conservancy and Ovis 21 in a new program to grow merino wool that, through the use of holistic grazing practices, helped restore long-degraded grassland to health. The revival of the grassland also promised to keep sheep ranching, a threatened way of life, alive in Patagonia, Argentina.

For restoring grassland, this was the best wool-producing program in the world for its time. It reflected what we had learned thus far about the compassionate treatment of animals. Patagonia, the region, did not have blowfly, so the sheep were not subjected to painful mulesing, they had room to roam, they were not fed hormones or antibiotics.

Although we had begun, in 2014, to work within the Textile Exchange on the development of a Responsible Wool Standard, our own wool supply chain did not previously take a holistic approach to the twin issues of land management and animal welfare.

We were dismayed when a representative of PETA, the animal rights organization, photographed ill treatment of animals on ranches supplying our merino wool. Although we took issue with many of PETA’s assertions, and to its tabloid tone, we were taken aback by what we saw in the video: callous indifference to animal suffering and a lack of compassionate handling.

We explained to our customers that we would cease buying wool from any supplier until we were confident that we could meet an appropriately high standard of animal welfare—without sacrificing regenerative grazing practices.

We’re glad we’ve had the opportunity to regroup, because we’ve learned a tremendous amount. The whole process—of consulting experts in animal welfare, engaging U.S. growers dedicated to humane treatment of animals, conducting in-depth field audits, and closely observing what it takes, in practice, to both revitalize the land and treat the animals well—reminded us very much of the days when we made the switch from conventionally grown to organic cotton. We’ve talked to the people who do the work, worked through what is actually possible, and put forth the highest possible standards in a new supply chain that involves the best possible partners.

The Challenging Realities of Animal Husbandry

This is as good a place as any to talk about the difficulties involved in this task. Wool, like down, is a by-product of an animal that is ultimately killed and sold for its meat. Vegans, like some who work at Patagonia or like activists who work for PETA, may opt out by avoiding any human use of domesticated animals. For the rest of us, those who produce and eat meat and wear wool, down or leather, the question is more complex. We can do everything we can to ensure that animals do not suffer before they are slaughtered, and to slaughter them compassionately. But there is much work we need to do to develop a 21^st century moral standard for the ethical treatment of animals.

In the 20^th century, our society adopted increasingly brutal methods of treatment for animals involved in factory farming, the penning and transportation in close, foul quarters, the wholesale administration of hormones and antibiotics, manipulation through targeted genetics that deprive animals of the ability to move or have a creaturely life. The actions of the ranch hands we saw in PETA’s video were more hands-on, less industrially cruel—but yet deeply ingrained in the way humans deal with animals, a product of culture centuries in the making. How does that change?

Step 1: Consulting Experts in Animal Welfare

To help answer that question, we initially consulted a number of experts who are engaged in a critical shift in thinking about the emotional and intellectual capacities of animals, and what constitutes compassionate treatment of those whose lives we take for food.

In addition to engaging directly with Four Paws and other animal rights organizations, as well as seasoned field auditors, we invited Dr. Temple Grandin to our headquarters in Ventura for a daylong meeting in which we absorbed the lessons of her lifetime spent advocating for the humane treatment of animals used for human consumption of all kinds.

Through this process, we grew to understand there are three major opportunities to make meaningful, accountable change for the welfare of sheep in our wool supply chain:

• Initial commitment from the ranchers who own the land and the sheep
• Education of ranch hands (who, when properly engaged, can exercise a deep responsibility for the health of both the land and the animals in their care)
• Adoption of clearly defined boundaries for noncompliance in critical areas—the bright lines in our approach that make up the highest possible bar for animal welfare—along with continuous reevaluation and improvement of our standards

Step 2: Defining Patagonia’s Standard for Animal Welfare & Land Management

Over the course of many months, we’ve developed a new Patagonia Wool Standard that we believe brings together from several important sources the world’s most stringent criteria for animal welfare and responsible land management.

Our standard provides strict guidance and accountability measures in key areas:

Animal Welfare: The standard adopts the provisions of the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) as a baseline for animal welfare, but also goes above and beyond:

• Patagonia’s standard includes special animal welfare provisions covering transportation and off-farm slaughter, as well as stockperson training in compassionate handling, avoiding shearing injuries, acceptable age ranges for castration and tail docking, and consistent availability of food and water.
• We will also exceed RWS baselines in the methodology for audits, which we require to be conducted in two phases: 1) during shearing, so that auditors can actually observe shearing practices and ensure standards are met, and 2) during lambing, so that auditors can witness the process of birth, tail docking, castration and all associated risks. (We are advocating that future versions of the RWS adopt these two phases as well, based on feedback we received from Dr. Grandin and others.)

Responsible Land Management: Our approach includes the RWS’ strong land management provisions, which Patagonia played a lead role in developing based on our previous experiences with regenerative grazing practices. These requirements pertain both to grasslands and other biotic communities where sheep may be raised, including biodiversity protection, soil management, and pesticide and fertilizer use.

Quality: Quality has always been and will continue to be a major pillar in our requirements for any materials sourcing, including wool. Our quality requirements exist independent of the Patagonia Wool Standard, and we expect the quality of our wool to only increase in our new supply chain.

With these important pieces working together, we’ve built a rigorous standard containing strong accountability measures that—when coupled with strong supplier partnerships—will give us the greatest possible confidence that sheep in our wool supply chain will be assured:

• A compassionate end of life, whether through on-farm or off-farm slaughter
• Reasonable transportation times and appropriate safeguards for safe food and water consumption
• Careful, humane treatment by farm workers, including treatment during shearing and other practices
• All potentially painful procedures done under strict control

In the end, 33 individual pieces of criteria in the Patagonia Wool Standard came directly from Dr. Grandin, who also participated in a review of our near-final standard in recent months, and many more came from or were refined during a robust stakeholder review with Four Paws, independent auditors, farms in the United States and New Zealand, and other expert organizations and individuals.

You can view the Patagonia Wool Standard by clicking here.

We will continue to keep you posted on our progress—and on the availability of our first products to include wool sourced under these high standards for animal welfare and regenerative grazing.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on July 11, 2017 and July 26, 2017.

The post Our Wool Restart appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

In 2015, we made the conscious decision to put a pause on our wool sourcing “until we can assure our customers of a verifiable process that ensures the humane treatment of animals.”

We are happy to have accomplished our goal and to update you that as of fall 2018, all of the wool in our products has been certified to the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), from farm to finished product. In addition, our key wool partners have also met the even more stringent requirements outlined in the Patagonia Wool Standard (PWS). The development of both the RWS and the PWS took careful consideration of best practices in animal welfare and land management and consultation with farms, animal welfare experts, brands and NGOs. You can view the Patagonia Wool Standard here.

As part of our wider responsibly sourced wool strategy, we have worked not only with the farmers raising the sheep but with our entire manufacturing supply chain to obtain certification to the RWS. This has meant that everyone from the scourer/top maker (who washes and initially processes the raw or greasy wool), the spinner (who takes the clean wool and turns it into yarn), to the finished goods factory all underwent audits to ensure they had strict chain of custody practices in place. This ensures that the responsible wool that was shorn at the certified farms was not mixed or swapped with conventional wool from other sources. This effort has spanned multiple supply chains and countries. In 2015 there were no RWS certified wool farms nor processors, but since then Patagonia and other concerned brands, suppliers and ranchers have helped increase adoption within the industry.

And that is not all. In order to ensure that we have “best in class” supply chain assurance from farm to finished product, we also had to obtain certification for our own brand. This involved changing the way we worked across many departments and even undergoing onsite RWS audits at our distribution center. Obtaining a final stage certification mark is an important milestone for Patagonia as a brand.

Overcoming Challenges

As with every major switch in sourcing we have learned a lot during the process. Here are a couple of examples:

Supply chain traceability: For the majority of wool sourcing brands, even mapping their wool to the farm is practically impossible due to the number of consolidators, agents and traders that are a feature of the global wool market. Through our diligence we were fortunate to find wool suppliers who were willing to provide us visibility to their farms, and also guarantee the traceability of our wool through the supply chain.

Finding likeminded wool partners: One of the biggest challenges was finding suppliers who were willing to start this journey with us and accept our requirements for wool, not only in quality but also in animal welfare and land management. Our Patagonia Wool Standard is the hardest to meet; this is due to the fact that two of our additional requirements involve processes that take place after the animals are sold by the farmer (when they are transported to the slaughterhouse, and the conditions in the actual slaughterhouse). This means the farmer has to obtain information on transportation and slaughter from their customers to whom the animals are sold. Keep in mind that the vast majority of the value of the animals is in their meat, not their wool, thus the meat customers have more leverage than we do as an apparel brand. Having said this, we were able to find great farmers who truly believe that this was possible and wanted to be part of the forward movement to become part of our preferred supplier pool.

We know that our requirements have challenged farmers to change centuries-old traditional wool ranching practices. While we know that was difficult, we were inspired along the way by seeing how they overcame all the challenges. Our progressive farm partners first and foremost care for their animals and their land, that is their livelihood and legacy and they took our standards and crafted careful plans that helped them achieve the most robust animal welfare practices we have ever seen. It is also important to recognize that the men and women taking care of the sheep that give our wool are constantly faced with incredible business challenges from market fluctuations, legislative/policy developments, a changing climate, obtaining financing for their operations, and ensuring they train the next generation of farmers. We are honored they chose us to feature their wool in our products and applaud them for their commitment.

The post Celebrate Wool Times appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

Our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) are our front line of communication with Patagonia fanatics far and wide. The crew here at our Call Center in Reno, NV are at it seven days a week, taking orders, helping with returns, and most importantly, answering the astonishing range of questions our customers fire at us. Like flocks of swirling swallows or shimmering schools of tropical fish, our customers swoop in with mysteriously synchronized concerns and questions on a regular basis, prompting the need for ready answers. Times like these, nothing would be more handy than magically beaming knowledge out into the ether. Our very own Old School is here to do just that. He's stepped back from the front lines to answer some of these popular questions, straight from the trenches.
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Patagonia has a well-deserved reputation for being extremely picky about what materials go into our products. Often, the materials we choose are exactly the same as those used by our competitors. But just as often, we insist on different materials even if we have to encourage our suppliers to make the material we're looking for. Below are two common questions we receive about natural fibers we use in our clothing; one is virtually identical industry-wide and the other is a fabric we insisted on tweaking because of environmental concerns.

So why do you use down?

In the outdoor clothing industry down insulation is ubiquitous. Almost every company sells a puffy down jacket and I often wonder if these other companies get the same ethical questions we get about using down. We continually find ourselves fielding questions about how a progressive company like Patagonia can, in good conscience, use down. The answer to that is simple, Patagonia’s mission statement begins with "Build the best product…" For us to do this we need to use the highest quality materials available. Right now when it comes to insulation, down has no equal; it has the highest warmth-to-weight ratio of any insulation and is highly compressible as well. Both properties are highly prized attributes in mountain clothing. That said, we do believe in the humane treatment of animals, and the geese that provide our down are no exception.

It's important to remember that down is a by-product of the food industry. Goose is a popular meat in Europe and as it turns out, selling the down from geese production is a profitable secondary benefit for the geese farmers. It also turns out that producing high quality goose down is not at odds with producing high quality goose meat. Healthy birds produce high-quality meat as well as high-quality down so it is in the farmer’s interest to have a healthy population of geese. Geese are fed natural grains, corn oats, and wheat and occasionally soy for protein. To our knowledge, the only geese that are force-fed are those being raised for goose liver. Geese being raised for both food and down are not force-fed because that produces substandard, oily down.

Raising geese is surprisingly chemical free. The geese are vaccinated at 2 weeks old and from then on they’re generally disease-free. The geese are raised without pesticides or insecticides and aside from some possible fertilizer on the grass, that’s it.

The most controversial aspect of goose down is down collection. For years, the prevailing wisdom was that down collected while geese are molting was harmless and painless to the animals, so we used down that was available from Hungary, which was likely sourced both as a by-product from meat production and from live-plucking. We've since learned to question the prevailing wisdom. While we cannot confirm if live plucking is indeed cruel, we felt it was best to avoid contributing to a contentious issue. As of March 2009, we made the decision to limit our use of down to only that which is truly a by-product of the food industry and developed a certification process to ensure this. Down that conforms to this certification can be found in products that will be available in stores in October of 2009.

Despite the above–or maybe because of it–some of our customers will have a problem with the use of goose down as insulation. For those who prefer to avoid animal-sourced materials, we offer a full line of products using PrimaLoft® synthetic insulation.

For more info on our down products, you can check out my previous post here.

ED NOTE (April 5, 2011) – In the above copy, we make the following statement:  "To our knowledge, the only geese that are force-fed are those being raised for goose liver. Geese being raised for both food and down are not force-fed because that produces substandard, oily down." Since writing this piece back in September of 2009, there have been new developments in the sourcing of our down. In December of 2010 we were accused by the European animal rights organization Four Paws of using down from live-plucked geese. While their accusations were incorrect (our certification process ensures we source exclusively non live-plucked down) this accusation did prompt us to reexamine our down supply chain. The results of this investigation showed that some of what I reported is incorrect.

Our latest efforts to investigate our down source reveal that there is actually no difference in the quality of down produced for meat vs. that which comes from geese that are specifically force-fed in the traditional methods of foie gras production. This of course raised new questions, which we delve into here: http://www.thecleanestline.com/2011/04/lowdown-on-down.html.
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Why do you use chlorine-free wool in your merino wool baselayer line?

One of the reasons that Patagonia was a little late getting in to the wool baselayer market wasn’t that we weren’t convinced of its benefits, that’s a no-brainer. Instead the problem was the process required to make the wool both machine-washable and comfortable against the skin. Even the finest merino wool fiber in its natural state is covered with tiny barbed scales. These scales not only make the wool itchy, when machin- washed those scales interlock, resulting in shrinkage. The most common method of processing wool is a chlorine-based process that completely removes the scales. The result is wool that doesn’t shrink or felt and is soft against the skin. Unfortunately this chlorine-based process sends large amounts of chlorine-based organohalogens into the environment. This process is so toxic that it is actually illegal in the U.S., so the treatment must be done overseas. This was unacceptable to us, so we worked with wool suppliers to find a safer process called the slow-wash process.

Our slow-wash systems uses ozone to remove only the barbed tips of the scales rather than the whole scale. Because this is a closed system none of the ozone escapes into the environment. This not only gives us a toxin-free process, it has other benefits as well. Chlorine-based processing not only removes the scales, it also removes much of the lanolin which is the oil that makes wool water repellent and odor resistant. Chlorine-based processing also damages the fibers to the point that they often need to be coated with a polymer resin to make them strong enough to be woven into fibers. Our slow-wash process preserves the natural lanolin and because much of the scale is left intact, the wool remains strong enough to be woven into fibers without the need for a polymer coating. We believe our slow-wash process is not only better for the environment, it also produces a better product. We think it was worth the wait and hope you do as well.

If you missed my post about visiting one of our wool suppliers in New Zealand you can read it here.

Another common type of question we get is the “Why don’t you use ____?” question. I have to admit I often have these questions myself. Sometimes you read about a cool new fabric that sounds super green or maybe just really innovative and I wonder why we're not using it. Of course I’m not the first one to wonder about new fabrics. Our fabric developers are at the forefront of fabric technology and every time I ask about something that sounds new and cool, it’s old news to them, having already researched and tested it, sometimes years before. And, just like Paul Harvey says, there’s always “the rest of story.” In my next post I’ll have some answers to a couple of our most common “Why don’t you use___?” questions we frequently hear on the phones. Stay tuned. . .

[Some of the sheep that provide the wool for Patagonia products. Dingleburn Station, NZ. Photo: Ken LaRussa.]

The post From the Trenches series – Why do you use… ? appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

We test our gear on a variety of levels. Our athletes and ambassadors are responsible for putting the latest designs and fabrics through the paces before we'll add a new product to our lineup. But just because something reaches our shelves doesn't mean testing is over. Once a new item shows up in our catalogs, our Customer Service staff gets busy ground-truthing the latest offerings. They know the questions our customers will be asking, and turn that attention to our gear. _____________________________________

Product Report: Nano Puff, Merino 1 T-Shirt, Nine Trails Jacket, Simple Guide Pants, Lightweight Travel Tote.
Activity: Hiking – Jones-White Trail, Carson Range of the Sierra Nevada
Tested by: Patagonia Customer Service reps OldSchool, Cory E., Andrea W., Dave S., Kevin L., and Megan B.

Twice a year our happy little work group gets to cut work and take a day to test gear, get a bit of exercise and share some lies. It had been beautiful weather for weeks prior so of course once the appointed day arrived it was howling windy. We had planned to climb Mount Rose but we were overruled by our boss Tammy who was quite worried about being blown off the summit, ripping her Nine Trails Jacket and mussing her hair. The rest of us love being pelted mercilessly by 80 mph winds, but in the name of group harmony we all acquiesced to a somewhat easier (and lower) nine mile hike known as the Jones-Whites Loop. There’s no such thing as a free hike here at Patagonia so all of us were required to fill in our coworkers on just what we chose to wear…Below are some excerpts from these reports:

First me:

Gearing up for any wilderness trip requires the utmost in planning and this trip was no exception. From my vast array of old and new Patagonia stuff, some dating back to the previous century I picked clothing suitable for a summit bid. I went with the Merino 1 T-Shirt, quite possibly the best athletic t I’ve ever worn. It's  light airy, quick drying and incredibly

[Whites Creek, Mt. Rose Wilderness, Nevada. Photo: Ken Larussa]

funk-fighting; it has quickly become my go-to t shirt. On top of that I wore a Cap 4 Zip Neck which provides a light insulating layer. And then, of course, the Houdini (this will return this spring), which is one of those pieces you wonder how you ever lived without. I also wore the Gi-II Pants and the Mid Weight Hiking Socks. The Gi-IIs are an awesomely simple nylon hiking pant. Since it looked like it might get cold I kept a Nano Puff and LW Ski Hat stashed in the bottom of the pack. The trail is below tree line but still can be windy in spots so I found myself alternately putting on and taking off the Houdini.

Cory’s our resident big mountain skier, surfer, mountain biker and all-around cool dude:

should own two of these just in case they lose one. I'm a huge fan of the Lightweight Travel Tote as well. It's just so practical for so many different activities from going to grab groceries, to going to the beach, or going for quick simple hikes. I used that pack to tote around my lunch, camera, and extra layers, and it worked perfectly. All of my layers worked out just fine for the activity at hand.

We experienced a few different types of weather and temps while we were out on the hike. In my opinion, layering, and layering the right combination, is crucial to your outdoor experience. Feeling comfortable and having fun is the name of the game, so always remember to dress for success.

Andrea is a long time runner who has only lately discovered the wonders of hiking in own back yard:

This was a fantastic hike with great views and wonderful company. Here’s what I wore: Gi II Zip-off Pants These are a very comfortable hiking pant and  I like the idea of having the option of shorts when you need them. I especially like that the shorts inseam isn't too short. For a shell I took The Nine Trails Jacket which is super lightweight and compressible. It has a very comfortable fit and the longer cut in the back keeps the jacket from riding up when wearing a back pack but I wish it had a better pocket closure, twice I've had to go back to look for things that have fallen out. For insulation I took a Stretch Velocity Zip-Neck and I really like it! It's warm and great in windy conditions (It was windy this day my friends). It's close fitting and the perfect length. I also wore the Cap 1 Scoop Neck and I love it, it's comfortable, breathable and keeps me dry when I'm sweating..

Dave, one of our newest reps is a snowboarder but has only been recently indoctrinated into the wonders of technical layering:

My first field day at Patagonia was definitely amazing; great people and awesome scenery. I wore the Men's Active Boxers, Capilene ®1 Bottoms, R1 Vest (no longer available), a Shelter Stone Jacket from the demo closet and a cotton t shirt which was a big mistake.  I quickly found out why cotton kills, not only did the shirt become soaking wet but so did my vest and jacket and every time I took my backpack off I would instantly freeze. So, lesson learned and I will heed Old School's warnings from now on.  As a side note, I went hunting about two weeks ago and wore the Capilene®1 T and the Merino 3 over that and could not have been more pleased, totally different experience and I will never wear a cotton t again!

Kevin’s been with Patagonia for years and is a bike aficionado and telemark skier:

We were going to hike up Mt Rose but the weather took a turn toward the blustery, or as they say here in Nevada, it was a little breezy that day. We decided instead to hike the Jones-Whites Loop, out of Galena Creek Park. It was still really windy in places but being mostly in the trees we were pretty sheltered. It's an  amazing place this here Nevada, not what most folks think it is, especially up in the Mount Rose Wilderness.

 I was wearing the mighty Cap 3 Crew and Silkweight Boxers (now Mens's Active Classic Boxers) as a base. I have to say here that these boxers are little older and I bought some new ones and I am just amazed how much extra fabric they contain. I''ve fielded a few calls from folks who want to know what is up with this and when will the boxers be "normal" again. I also had my trusty R1 Pullover, one of my favorite things we make and these are great. For pants I used my old second generation Talus pants which probably compare to say the Simple Guide Pants. My only complaint about those is the lack of a fly (the Talus, not the Simple Guides), otherwise they rock. For a shell I took along and sometimes used my old Dragonfly Pullover otherwise known to the wags as the "Sweatbag" (this was replaced by the far more breathable Houdini)  but I like it. It packs small and light and keeps the wind out.

Megan's another one of our new reps; an avid rafter, she's best know around here for running Maytag Rapid, in an inner tube.

After many warm, unseasonably sunny days, I awoke the morning of my first field day with my Patagonia team to a cold, windy “fall has arrived” kind of day. What to wear, how to layer? Having just started at Patagonia, I have not yet accumulated all the latest and greatest Patagonia has to offer, so I kick it old school. After a couple outfit changes I decided to go for comfort in my Phoenix Capri Tights (no longer available) and opted for a couple different warm layers on top. I have my tried-and-true bio-stretch (the closest available equivalent is the Women's Capilene® 3 Crew) base layer and my Lightweight Endurance Socks too. For my upper layering options, I decided to go with a Cool Weather Zip Neck. I also bought my R4, and in case of a bit of rain I had my Supercell Jacket (now the Rain Shadow). At the lower elevations, my Cool Weather worked very well. Once we started gaining altitude and wind exposure, I went to my R4 and stayed with it for the rest of the day. It was awesome. Not a breath of wind came through, and it was blustering. As always, I was stoked on all my gear. It was a fine hike up to an expansive view complete with a peaceful and wind-protected picnic next to a gurgling, spring-fed creek and a magical moment in a golden grove of aspens.

Recovery is a big part of any athletic endeavor; luckily a nearby establishment offers up suitable comestibles and is not too far from the trailhead. Great hikes demand great nutrition but not being in the mood for dried beans, we opted for The Blind Onion’s pizza and beer, two products highly recommended by climbing legend and fellow Patagonia employee TM Herbert. Our recovery was complete. 

[Above, right – Aspens in the first stages of color-change along the Jones-Whites Loop. Above, left – Doing their best to break away from their desks, Patagonia Customer Service Reps head for the local hills to enjoy a fall hike. Photos: Cory Engles].
  

The post Product Testing – Dressing Right for a Windy Hike appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

We have some great benefits at Patagonia. But none is better than the opportunity to volunteer with environmental groups through our internship program. During my 15 years working as an editor here at our headquarters in Ventura, I’ve gotten to follow wild buffalo in West Yellowstone, see the effects of industrial forestry in Chile, learn about the sagebrush environment in northern Nevada, and most recently, spend two weeks in Patagonia, Argentina, working with The Nature Conservancy on its grasslands project.

Sheep ranching is the most prevalent land use in the Patagonia region, which is three times the size of California and mostly privately owned. Overgrazing is turning its grasslands into desert. To reverse the degradation, preserve biodiverstiy and freshwater resources, Patagonia has partnered with The Nature Conservancy and Ovis XXI, an Argentine company that manages and develops a network of wool producers.

[Above: A gaucho and his border collie head to their flock.]

Together, we’re promoting a sustainable grazing protocol with the goal of conserving 15 million acres of Patagonian grasslands over the next five years. The protocol employs holistic management practices that mimic the historic grazing patterns of migratory guanaco and rhea that are native to the region. By emphasizing high-density grazing followed by adequate recovery time, we are working toward the actual regeneration of grasslands, instead of simply slowing desertification. Patagonia (the company) is using the sustainably sourced merino wool in a number of our products, including merino socks (available now), as well as women’s merino sweaters and all of our merino baselayers (in fall 2013).

In September 2012, I traveled to Patagonia to learn about the grasslands project with the goal of producing a brochure for The Nature Conservancy. Patagonia is a semiarid scrub plateau that covers nearly all of the southern portion of mainland Argentina. With an area of about 260,000 square miles (673,000 square kilometers), it constitutes a vast area of steppe and desert that extends south from latitude 37° to 51° S. Here are some photos from my trip.

Built on the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi, Bariloche is a resort town on the eastern side of the Cordillera with great skiing, fishing, mountain biking, climbing and other outdoor recreation. The Nature Conservancy coordinates its grasslands project from an office in the city.

Local color: Back street Bariloche.

Upon arriving in Bariloche, I received a warm welcome and a thorough briefing from staff at The Nature Conservancy, some of who are pictured here. (L-R) Carlos Fernandez (Project Manager), Gustavo Iglesias and Valeria Bran.

The next day we loaded up The Nature Conservancy’s Hilux and set out on a 1,200-mile road-trip through northern Patagonia visiting sheep ranches.

It was early spring and snow was still falling in the mountains.

Three of our four-person crew: (l-r) Diego Ochoa (The Nature Conservancy), Cristobal Costa (Patagonia Buenos Aires store) and me, Jim Little. The Nature Conservancy’s Gustavo Iglesias (not in the picture) patiently took the photo, drove the truck, expertly described all of the natural history and prepared the mate. Photo: Gustavo Iglesias

Always thinking ahead, Gustavo fills up the thermos with hot water for the next round of mate. Many gas stations in this part of the world have tanks that heat and hold water for their customers’ mate-drinking pleasure.

Yerba mate in one hand, iPhone in the other, Cristobal Costa deftly balances communication devices old and new.

Thousands of miles of dirt roads and barb wire crisscross Patagonia. This road led to Estancia El Cronometro, a 50,000-acre sheep ranch that recently adopted the sustainable grazing protocol.

El Cronometro is owned by a pro soccer player who lives in Chile. Concerned about the environmental health of his ranch, he began working with Ovis XXI last year. Under the sustainable grazing protocol, his sheep are now being managed in such a way that they help to regenerate El Cronometro’s grasslands. There are significant benefits for both the rancher and nature.

Sheep were allowed to graze too long on this patch of Estancia El Cronometro. This is a scene repeated all over Patagonia, home to millions of sheep. Allowed to wander, sheep nibble their favorite grasses right down to the roots. The grasses die or are seriously weakened, and the topsoil held by their roots is carried away by wind and rain. Desertification results. Water runs off instead of soaking into the ground. Less carbon is absorbed. There is not as much forage for native guanaco (a camelid like the llama), choique (a large, flightless bird also known as the lesser rhea) and sheep.

A sheep-eye view of healthier grasses.

Guanaco are native herbivores that can be hard to photograph without a telephoto lens. To best understand the sustainable grazing protocol, imagine Patagonia’s pre-European grasslands in which guanaco and rhea roamed the countryside in large numbers – eating its diverse grasses, defecating, stomping and salivating along the way. They were integral to the health of the ecosystem, and unlike badly managed sheep, they never stayed in one place long enough to overgraze, as predators kept them constantly on the move. Instead of turning grasslands into deserts, they tilled and fertilized the soil, transported seeds and stimulated the growth of grasses.

Though I had always thought of flamigos as a tropical bird, they too share the Patagonian landscape with livestock.

Spring is shearing time in northern Patagonia, and an itinerant crew of shearers was hard at it inside this shed at Estancia El Cronometro. Each bale of wool weighs about 400 lbs.

Merino sheep await shearing. Ovis XXI’s selective breeding program yields the super fine merino wool for Patagonia products.

The shed was a whir of activity. Using shears powered by electric motors, it took these guys about three minutes to defrock a sheep. The sheep don’t appear to enjoy it, but they don’t suffer more than separation anxiety and a few nicks.

Not all wool is equal – some is long and fine, some is short and coarse and some is in between. Here it’s pre-classified before it’s trucked to a facility that washes, combs and sorts it.

Pablo Borrelli, one of the principles of Ovis XXI, fondles the good stuff.

On most ranches in Patagonia, sheep are raised for both their wool and meat.

As his workers sheared away in another building, the crew leader prepared lunch the old-fashion way. Despite his steely gaze and the glint of his oversized knife, he was generous with his lamb sandwiches and graciously agreed to pose for a portrait.

Separated from their wool, sheep go back to grazing.

And we go back to counting sheep.

The post Wooly in Patagonia appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

Update 8/17/15: Thank you to everyone who commented on this story. Your feedback is very important to us. Please see our follow-up post on this issue for the latest news.

PETA has shown us video footage from within the Ovis 21 farm network that supplies merino wool for Patagonia’s baselayers and insulation. It is as disturbing as anything PETA puts out. Three minutes long, the video contains graphic footage depicting inhumane treatment of lambs and sheep; of castration; of tail docking (the removal of a sheep’s tail); and slaughter of lambs for their meat. We’ll go into detail below.

It’s especially humbling to acknowledge responsibility for the practices shown because the impetus for our original involvement in this project was, in addition to restoring grassland, improvement of animal welfare. In 2005, we became aware (through PETA’s campaign against Australian wool growers) of the painful practice of mulesing sheep to reduce the damage from flystrike. We worked to stop sourcing wool on the open (and untraceable) market as quickly as we could, and even delayed a major product launch of merino baselayers until we could find reliable sources for non-mulesed wool in New Zealand and Australia.

PETA has targeted Patagonia because it holds us responsible for practices done in our name: wool from the farms shown in the video is spun, knit and sewn into clothing that bears our label. We accept responsibility for everything done by our suppliers at any level, but especially in this case. Beginning in 2011, we embarked on a close partnership with Ovis 21 to develop a radical new way to grow wool—one that regenerates rather than depletes grassland, keeps alive a way of life in the Patagonia region, and produces wool of unprecedented quality for our next-to-skin clothing. This has been a significant and engaging project for us.

When we began our initial discussions with Ovis 21, we were happy to learn that blowfly does not inhabit Patagonia, so mulesing is not an issue there. We were also pleased to learn the Ovis 21 farmers took steps to ensure that animals have sufficient fleece to maintain warmth through the winter. In addition, Argentina does not permit the export of live sheep, a dangerous practice. And we noted that to achieve certification by Ovis 21, participating ranchers must adhere to strict protocols for grazing and land management; flock improvement; and shearing, all of which favorably influence animal welfare. We have worked closely with Ovis 21 on its progress toward holistic grazing; however, beyond verifying that no mulesing occurs, we have not audited its animal-welfare practices and were unaware of the issues raised in the video.

PETA does not believe in the use of animals for any human purpose; this is a belief we respect but do not share. Nevertheless, PETA plays an important role in raising awareness of harmful practices involving animals, and we listen when legitimate concerns are uncovered, even if we become a target of their activism.

For our part, we do offer alternatives to down and wool for our vegan friends and customers. In addition, we’ve devoted considerable resources toward the development and implementation of the world’s most stringent standard to ensure that goose and duck down come from animals that have been neither live-plucked nor force fed to produce foie gras. Our requirements were incorporated by the independent certification body NSF International into its Global Traceable Down Standard.

We’ve also been working on wool. In early 2014, we began working collaboratively with numerous other brands and the Textile Exchange to develop the forthcoming Responsible Wool Standard for treating sheep and lambs that meets 21^st century moral standards for the ethical treatment of animals. It is our hope that this global standard, when completed, will protect animal welfare, influence best practices, ensure traceability, and ultimately give consumers clear and trustworthy information that will allow them to make responsible choices. PETA was invited by the Textile Exchange to join this process, but declined. The process did include the participation of other animal-welfare organizations.

Two practices highlighted in the video, it should be noted, are standard across the wool industry, for good reason. Castrating select members of the flock helps keep it manageable and eliminates overcrowding, while tail docking reduces instances of infection in sheep and facilitates hygiene. What’s critical is that these procedures be done humanely, in a way governed by enforceable, uniform standards.

For those who are interested, you can watch the video here (warning: graphic footage). We are not immune to shocking images. There is no excuse for violent shearing methods and inhumane slaughter. We are investigating the practices shown. We will work with Ovis 21 to make needed corrections and improvements, and report back to our customers and the public on the steps we will take.

We apologize for the harm done in our name; we will keep you posted.

Timeline of Patagonia’s efforts to build a more responsible wool supply chain

February 2005
We learn about the painful mulesing process as a result of a PETA campaign against Australian wool growers, which also decries the “live export” of animals (shipping and selling of live sheep from Australia to the Middle East for fresh consumption).

2008
We begin to move our wool fiber source from purchase on the conventional open market, where wool is untraceable and mulesed, to non-mulesed regions in New Zealand and certain specific Australian supply chains where the practice does not occur. This requires delaying the introduction of our wool baselayer program until we had a traceable supply chain in New Zealand and Australia where we could be sure mulesing wasn’t used.

Fall 2008
We launch our Merino Performance Baselayer line, sourced from non-mulesed sheep in New Zealand.

November/December 2011
Our materials and environmental teams visit Ovis 21 network farms in the Patagonia region of Argentina to determine the viability of nominating yarn from their program in order to a) support an important grasslands conservation effort and b) maintain our policy of avoiding the mulesing of sheep in our supply chain.

Because blowfly infestations do not occur in Argentina, we confirmed mulesing is not occurring but did not audit the farms specifically for other animal welfare concerns. We are aware that tail docking, which reduces instances of infection in sheep and facilitates hygiene, is occurring. We do not explore castration practices.

Fall 2011
We move our Merino Performance Baselayer program to Australian traceable, non-mulesed wool.

2012
We continue with planning, quality testing, volume, and supply chain trials surrounding the Ovis 21 wool—adopting their fiber into more of our products over time.

Fall 2012
We introduce Ovis 21 wool in all of our socks and some baselayers.

February 2014
We begin work as part of a public task force on the industry approach to a Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), led by the Textile Exchange. The standard will ensure a responsible, consistent approach to treating sheep and lambs that meets 21^st century moral standards of the ethical treatment of animals. It is our hope that this global standard, when completed, will protect animal welfare, influence best practices, ensure traceability, and ultimately give consumers clear and trustworthy information that will allow them to make responsible choices.

For Patagonia and the Ovis 21 network, RWS will emphasize animal welfare as a clear priority alongside grasslands restoration.

2014
We convert the entire Merino Performance Baselayer line to Ovis 21 wool.

We begin moving to correct the small part of our wool that is still bought on the open market (some wool hats, and the wool lining of our wetsuits) by changing suppliers.

Winter/Spring 2015
Through our Social and Environmental Responsibility team, Patagonia continues to help lead the industry effort to develop the Responsible Wool Standard—participating in the Textile Exchange Working Group Steering Committee.

Summer 2015
We hold several internal meetings to decide how to begin the work of implementing the Responsible Wool Standard in anticipation of its completion in 2016.

August 2015
PETA releases a video containing graphic footage depicting inhumane treatment of lambs and sheep; of castration; of tail docking; and slaughter of lambs for their meat.

While we previously understood the need to adopt a strict standard to ensure animal welfare and worked toward that goal, we were not aware of any animal welfare issues with Ovis 21 farms until now. We begin an urgent investigation into the practices shown in PETA’s video and commit to working with Ovis 21 to make needed improvements, reporting back to our customers and the public on steps we are taking.

Overview of Ovis 21 protocols involving animal welfare

To be certified as Ovis 21 Sustainable Wool, ranchers must adhere to strict protocols for grazing and land management; flock improvement; and shearing—three pillars that all include major provisions to ensure animal welfare.

In short, these standards stipulate:

• Sheep are bred in natural grasslands.
• There is no mulesing.
• No antibiotics or hormones are used.
• Medical treatments are limited to vaccines and piretroids to control external parasites.
• There is no “live export” of animals.
• Castration and tail docking, industry standard practices that promote responsible flock management and hygiene, are done at an early age with techniques designed to minimize pain.

In detail, the three pillars contain the following provisions:

1. GRASS Standard  

Land management is a key issue for animal welfare. With our adaptive management, and principally by using holistic planned grazing, we achieve the following outcomes:

• Produce under extensive open paddocks, in conditions that mimic natural grazing and recreate the herbivore-predator relationship (no confinement or artificial feeding).
• Increase the forage available, and ensure that every animal has enough feed for the whole year.
• Increase grassland biodiversity, which improves the quality of the diet.
• Increase the manager skills and attention to be responsible for the animals.
• Risk reduction and better management in case of drought or heavy snow that may cause animal losses.
• Better water supply and distribution.
• Use of guard dogs to help to avoid predation by foxes and pumas in a friendly manner with the predator.

2. Flock Improvement Standard

• Breed open face, plain-bodied animals, which are better adapted for extensive grazing systems. Open faces ensure clear vision throughout the year, and correlate with fertility and fitness.
• Breed for high fat deposition that correlates with the ability to survive and breed under climatic stress conditions.
• Breed solely using natural methods (no artificial gene manipulation)

3. Wool Classing and Shearing Standards

• Comply with Argentina’s National Standard in all procedures involving shearing, classing and packing of wool (above the standard for advanced flocks).
• Shear using snow combs or blades to reduce cold stress and leave more wool on the skin in order to increase insulation.

The post PETA’s Wool Video [Updated] appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

Dear Friends,

We’ve spent the past several days looking deep into our wool supply chain, shocked by the disturbing footage of animal cruelty that came to light last week. Patagonia’s partnership with Ovis 21 has been a source of pride because of the program’s genuine commitment to regenerating the grassland ecosystem, but this work must come equally with respectful and humane treatment of the animals that contribute to this endeavor.

The most shocking portion of PETA’s video shows the killing of animals for human consumption. Like those in the Ovis 21 network, most commercial-scale ranches that produce wool from sheep also produce meat. What’s most important is that we apply strong and consistent measures to ensure animals on ranches that supply wool for products bearing the Patagonia name are treated humanely, whether during shearing or slaughter. We took some important steps to protect animals in partnering with Ovis 21, but we failed to implement a comprehensive process to assure animal welfare, and we are dismayed to witness such horrifying mistreatment.

In light of this, we’ve made a frank and open-eyed assessment of the Ovis program. Our conclusion: it is impossible to ensure immediate changes to objectionable practices on Ovis 21 ranches, and we have therefore made the decision that we will no longer buy wool from them. This is a difficult decision, but it’s the right thing to do.

Re-building our wool program—with a partner that can ensure a strong and consistent approach to animal welfare, while also fostering healthy grasslands—will be a significant challenge. However, we reject the notion that cruelty is essential to wool production, despite what PETA claims. Patagonia will continue to make products from wool because of its unique performance attributes. We will continue to sell products made from the wool we’ve already purchased. And we will continue to offer excellent synthetic alternatives for those who prefer them, while constantly pushing to innovate and invest in new materials and better supply chains. But Patagonia will not buy wool again until we can assure our customers of a verifiable process that ensures the humane treatment of animals.

We will also continue our efforts, initiated in 2014, to lead in the industry’s development of strong, new verifiable standards for wool production we can all be proud of. We will take this as an opportunity to push even harder for the strongest possible animal welfare standards to be integrated into the forthcoming Responsible Wool Standard.

We apologize for the harm done in our name. We will continue to update you on our progress to do better.

Rose Marcario
CEO Patagonia

The post Patagonia to Cease Purchasing Wool from Ovis 21 appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

The following report is brought to us by Ken Larussa, from our Reno Distribution Center, home of Patagonia’s Customer Service.  If you’re a long-time customer, chances are good you’ve spoken to Ken at least once.  After hearing about Ken’s trip and seeing his pictures, we’re lucky he came back.

Wool. We all know it comes from sheep and we all know that New Zealand is famous forsheep. Since I was going to New Zealand anyway, I asked Tetsuya—who works in Fabric Development—if there was any way he could arrange a visit to Dingleburn Station, the place where the Merino wool we use for our new base-layer line comes from. A few emails back and forth and next thing I knew my brother, my girlfriend, and I were wandering around the Wanaka airport searching for someone with a small plane who looked like a sheep farmer.

It didn’t take long for Guy Mead, who does in fact look exactly like a sheep farmer, to walk up and ask if I was from Patagonia. Probably wasn’t too difficult since I was decked out head-to-toe in our stuff.

Guy’s 4-seater was a bit smaller than the Boeing 777 Kirsten and I flewin on, so it was with just a bit of trepidation that we hopped in forthe short flight out to his “station”—what New Zealanders andAustralians call large scale ranches. We buckled in and off we went.

[Photos: Top – Some of the grazing lands surrounding Dingleburn Station
Bottom – Guy Mead pilots the commute out to the Station.  Thanks to Ken and Kirsten Mashinter for all the great photos.]

Tetsuya had warned me about the dirt road going into Dingleburn, so flying in and skipping all that was quite the coup. Not to mention the views. Looking down on Lake Hawea with views of Mt. Aspiring and the Southern Alps was a flight that might have made Frodo jealous. We touched down in the middle of a paddock and hopped out. My first thought was that it’s got to be a great place to be a sheep. Sitting on the shores of Lake Hawea, complete with a river boasting brown and rainbow trout flowing right through his station, I was ready to move in.

The day we visited, most of the sheep were high up in the mountains, grazing on grasses untainted by chemical fertilizers of which Guy explained he had little use for in this part of New Zealand. I asked about organic wool and he said that the only thing that keeps his sheep from being organic is a stomach parasite in New Zealand that affects Merino sheep specifically (as opposed to the “Marino,” the rare touchdown-throwing variety from Miami). This parasite necessitates bi-annual sheep dips to keep them healthy. He went on to say that he’s been working on a few things that he hopes will in the future allow him to forgo this treatment, and if it works, his sheep will surpass even the most stringent organic requirements. He then drove us around the station and explained how they move the sheep from area to area to prevent over-grazing. Many of the grazing areas were high up on the hillsides and it takes a lot of dogs and even the occasional helicopter to get the sheep to move along.

Our next stop was the shearing shed where the sheep get liberated of their wooly fleece. They’re sheared by itinerate professional shearers who work both the North and South island and can shear some 200 sheep a day. Merino sheep get sheared once a year and produce about 4 kilos (8.8 lbs) of wool per shearing. They produce wool with a diameter of less than 18 microns, which means that the wool, even straight off the sheep, is incredibly soft. For comparison, most other breeds of sheep produce wool in the range of 25-38 microns.

For a sheep, Dingleburn Station would be a beautiful place to live out your days, but unfortunately, after 5 to 7 years the wool from Merino sheep starts to grow coarse, so the sheep are literally sold down the river where they continue to produce lesser quality wool for other suppliers.

Next, Guy brought us over to see some real, live sheep. The only sheep that weren’t high up on a hillside were the young rams that he needs to keep separated from the rest of the herd; I guess even in the sheep world, boys will be boys. It’s hard to say what was more interesting, watching one dog herd about two dozen sheep into the corner of a pen or watching Guy wrestle one to the ground so we could get a good look at him.

Dingleburn Station is a family operation, and no visit to a New Zealand family is complete without a visit to the home. Guy’s house is situated in a spot with million-dollar views overlooking the station and Lake Hawea. He brought us in for a “cuppa” (New Zealand catchall for a cup of coffee or tea) and some tasty muffins and shortbread that his wife Davida, who was off visiting one of their daughters, had baked up for us.

Before we knew it, we were back at his plane, where Guy gently informed me that Dingleburn Station had no real use for a phone jockey. Sadly, I jumped back in the plane for another incredible flight back to the Wanaka Airport where we continued our trip to see the rest of the South Island.

[Photos, top to bottm: 1) Dingleburn Station’s waterfront property with views of New Zealand’s Southern Alps in the distance, 2) The residents, 3 & 4) Guy Mead giving a hands-on introduction to the quality of Dingleburn wool, 5) Why Ken Larussa wishes he was a sheep.]

The post Where Our Wool Comes From appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

Three years ago, we set out to make a new fleece fabric using natural fibers that were light on the land. Our inspiration came from an old sweater, a weather-beaten merino pullover worn by founder Yvon Chouinard in Patagonia’s early days. It had all the properties that have made wool a staple for centuries of cold-weather work. It breathed well, wicked sweat and stayed warm when wet.

To this, we added the durability and loft of our classic synthetic fleece (think of the cozy Snap-T) for the best of both worlds: Woolyester Fleece, a lightweight layer that dries quickly, packs easily, and is soft on the skin. Yet the biggest innovation behind the fabric is its use of recycled wool. And like a lot of good ideas, this one sprang from necessity.

In 2015, Patagonia made the decision to temporarily halt the use of virgin wool, due to concerns about animal welfare and land management. The pause gave us time to develop the Patagonia Wool Standard, and use the Responsible Wool Standard as our baseline requirement for wool suppliers, so that we only work with sheep ranchers who demonstrate that they treat animals humanely, manage grasslands responsibly, and offer transparency at every step in the supply chain.

With virgin wool unavailable, and plans for a natural fiber fleece already underway, our materials team needed a workaround. So we turned to reclaimed wool.

We started in the Prato region of Italy, where our partners, the Calamai family, have been recycling wool for nearly 150 years. Two young brothers opened the Calamai facility in 1878 (well before the birth of the modern environmental movement) with the goal of meeting growing demand for affordable textiles. Today, the family’s fourth generation is motivated by ecology, not economics. Thanks in large part to their recycling process, the production of Woolyester Fleece uses 23 percent less water than its synthetic counterparts, and emits 37 percent less carbon.

Recycling wool also keeps clothes out of garbage dumps. The Calamai family collects unwanted sweaters, blankets and fabric scraps from around the world, then sends them to Prato, where they’re sorted, shredded and bundled into towering monochromatic bales.

“It’s astonishing when you go to the facility and see these giant warehouses stacked with discarded clothes,” says Sarah Hayes, Patagonia’s senior material innovation and research manager. A staggering number of the abandoned garments are in like-new condition. Most of them come from the U.S. Woolyester’s Fall 2018 line alone will divert roughly 60,000 pounds of clothing from landfills.

Another big reason we like recycled wool is because it eliminates the need for dye, and the toxic chemicals and water waste that often come with it (we’re tackling this problem with the Clean Color line). The color experts at Calamai can create almost any hue without ever opening a bottle of pigment. They pluck a variety of colors from the spectrum of fiber bales, then run them through a rigorous mechanical blending process to render an entirely new shade. Mix three variations of crimson, and you have Patagonia’s Oxide Red—a shade that’s as vibrant as it is easy on the planet.

But it does no good to make an environmentally friendly jacket that no one wants to wear. In order to achieve the level of comfort we were going for, we knew we needed to nail the mix of materials. It took a few tries. When we blended the recycled wool with a standard polyester, we ended up with a dense, bulky fleece. So we went back to the drawing board, this time knitting in a feather-light micropolyester. It worked better than we’d hoped.

“The moment a new fabric arrives at the warehouse and you unroll it, you know if you have a winner,” Hayes says. “As soon as we touched it, we were stoked. It was soft, lofty, lightweight.”

But it still had to go through a battery of tests at Patagonia’s in-house lab. After washing it, stretching it, and beating it up to check for pilling, abrasion, and bursting strength, our design team sent Woolyester on to field testers, who lived in it for weeks straight before giving it a thumbs up.

It was warm, but didn’t trap sweat. It didn’t hang on to odors. It washed well. You could easily compress it and shove it in a backpack. It had a higher weight-to-warmth ratio than standard synthetic fleece, and better breathability. It dried more quickly than a wool sweater would, and was significantly lighter.

It also happened to look pretty good. Before sketching silhouettes for the pullovers and full-zip jackets that would introduce Woolyester to the world (along with Woolie, its sister line of recycled wool and cotton), Senior Sportswear Designer Kourtney Morgan spent weeks sifting through Patagonia’s archives, a sprawling warehouse stocked with specimens of nearly every T-shirt, jacket or climbing tool we’ve ever made.

Morgan pulled favorite details from the 1970s pile fleeces that first put Patagonia on the map. She modeled wide navy cuffs after the ones we used back when we couldn’t afford fabric minimums to make trim in other colors. She added Half Dome pocket stitching and swapped out baggy Y-Joint sleeves for a slimmer fit.

The result is a modern, minimalist layer that pays tribute to our history, not just in its classic design lines but in its ethos. It’s the evolution of fleece.

Visit patagonia.com to see the entire Woolyester collection. 

The post Introducing Woolyester appeared first on The Cleanest Line.

She went to Italy to see how recycled wool is made and discovered that everything has an impact, including recycled.

Silvia Micheloni cuts the plastic straps binding a bale of compacted used wool clothes that have already been sorted by color—today, she’s working through the greens. As she snips the last strap, dark green fabric of different shapes and sizes spills onto the factory floor. Her son Gabriele sprays them with water to prevent static, then picks up the pile with an electric forklift and drops it onto a conveyer belt, where a guillotine cuts everything into smaller and smaller pieces until they are the size of a handkerchief. The heavy smell of grease or oil needed to run and maintain all the machinery overwhelms my senses.

I’m in the middle of Prato, a region in the north of Tuscany, Italy, to learn how recycled wool is made. Our partners, the Calamai family, work with the Lanificio Becagli shredding facility and others to turn used wool garments into Patagonia’s Woolyester Fleece, made by spinning postconsumer recycled wool yarn with a featherlight micropolyester. Postconsumer is recycling jargon for any finished product that has previously been used then diverted from landfills at the end of its life to create another product. Think of any piece of clothing that you’ve thrown in a designated textile-collection bin.

There are two sets of shredding machines here, and the noise they make as they cut through old sweaters makes conversation nearly impossible, even from a foot apart. This doesn’t discourage Andrea, a cigar aficionado and my guide and wool expert. He’s intent on explaining every bit of the process that goes into recycling wool. “A REVOLUTIONARY FRENCH INVENTION!” he shouts, pointing to the guillotine. Andrea explains how the sorted clothes are carried on a conveyor belt, first through a series of blades, or guillotines, then through two cylinders—one grabs, another one pulls—to chop the fabrics even finer.

Outside the factory walls, quiet terraced hills surround one of the biggest industrial districts in Europe. The district is made up of a network of businesses, factories, mills and shipping facilities that all play a part in the making and selling of recycled fabrics. Beyond these hills, thousands of other manufacturers in the world make up the supply chain—a term used to describe everything from the crops grown to make yarn and the sewing of fabric into garments to the shipping of finished clothes to warehouses, stores and the customer’s front porch—that turns waste into recycled products. It is a global industrial process that carries its own footprint, something I hadn’t fully grasped until I saw for myself how recycled fabrics are made.

“Industrial” is a term often heard in the context of growing food or raising animals for meat but not so much in reference to the clothing business. Yet, making and selling clothes is very industrial—as a whole, the process puts approximately 1.2 billion tons of warming greenhouse gases into the air we breathe every year, contributing to the climate crisis. According to a 2017 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the clothing industry is responsible for as many emissions as international flights and maritime shipping combined. Why? Because most clothing is manufactured in China, India and Bangladesh in factories that rely heavily on energy from fossil fuels, specifically coal-fired power plants.

All virgin materials, natural or synthetic, have some type of impact on people and the planet. Virgin wool uses energy, water and chemicals to convert sheep fleece into fabric. Nylon is a plastic derived from petroleum, which means making clothes from virgin nylon relies on extracting fossil fuels from the ground. Polyester, now used in 60 percent of the world’s garments, is also derived from oil. Making clothes from recycled materials is Patagonia’s way of reducing that impact.

Patagonia first made clothes from recycled materials in 1996 by melting used soda bottles and turning them into recycled polyester for our Synchilla® fleece. Back then, we couldn’t get the color out of the Sprite bottles we used, and all of the recycled polyester fleece turned out the same light green color. We’ve come a long way in the past two decades, and this season, 72 percent of Patagonia products (by weight) are made with recycled materials—recycled wool, recycled down, recycled cotton, recycled polyester, recycled nylon and recycled cashmere.

Using recycled fabrics and materials helps to promote new recycling streams for clothing that is no longer wearable and reduces the carbon footprint of a product associated with the extraction of raw materials. By using recycled materials in one year, Patagonia saved 20,000 tons of CO2e compared to using virgin materials, or enough to cover the energy use for one year of roughly 2,400 US homes, according to the EPA emissions calculator. However, there’s lots of room for improvement. The recycling rate across the clothing industry as a whole is a measly 15 percent. That number is even lower if you look at how much of the material used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing—less than one percent..

The Calamai family has been collecting used wool garments since 1878, more than a century before the word “sustainable” became mainstream.

“My great-grandfather built our first wool factory near the train station and traveled with his wagon to rich European countries in search of good-quality wool scraps,” says Bernardo Calamai who leads the Calamai family business. After the first World War, Bernardo tells me, much of the wool they collected came from the United States. “We would get scraps from around the world, but the best quality came from California, which was very rich at the time,” says Bernardo.

Back then, the cenciaiolos, workers who would hand select the scraps and sort them by material type and color, would find all sorts of objects inside the garments coming from the US, including hidden treasures. Once, a cenciaiolo found six million Italian lira inside a sleeve. “Now, all they find is pocket change,” says Bernardo laughing.

These days, the Calamai family collects unwanted or used wool clothes from around the world, mostly from India, the US and Italy. As the clothes make their way from waste to their second life, they pass through a network of highly specialized businesses that sort, shred, spin, weave and finish the final fabric, which then gets made into clothing and shipped around the world again.

It is a remarkable and intricate process. Beyond recycled wool, I saw how scraps of cashmere from the factory floor get turned into recycled cashmere yarn at other facilities in Prato and how used carpets and salvaged fishing nets break down to become recycled nylon in Slovenia.

As I took notes and learned from experts, I kept going back to this quote from philosopher John Heil: “I take as my starting point the following assertion: to see something is to acquire (in a certain way perhaps) a belief.” Before Prato, my belief about the recycling process was based on magical thinking. I thought of the piles of clothes that end up in the landfill or the interminable racks of unwanted oversized T-shirts at Goodwill stores or the purple rivers next to dyeing factories. I wished recycling would take all of that and find new life for it. It took an Italian cigar connoisseur and wool technician and a week of seeing dozens of factories to wake me up to the realization that everything has an impact, including recycled wool.

What recycling succeeds in doing is displacing the extraction of raw material, a vital need in a time when we are using up the Earth’s resources faster than ever before. But if we don’t reduce the production of new materials, recycling simply delays the inevitable. After all, the same material will not get many more chances at a new life, and eventually, it will get discarded and sent to a landfill or incinerator.

“One of the big myths about recycling is the reason for recycling,” says Roland Geyer, professor of industrial ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “From an environmental point of view, the only job recycling has is to displace virgin material production, so in the end, it’s about how much we consume. Reducing consumption plus recycling would be really beneficial,” he says. Geyer thinks buying a product with recycled content still has an environmental impact; although, that impact is typically lower than that of the same product made from virgin materials. “But that doesn’t make it green,” he says. “It makes it, maybe, less brown.”

Find out more about the recycled materials Patagonia uses to make clothes and why we need more brands in the clothing industry to limit their use of virgin materials.

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