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- When I talk to young people

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who are starting out in business,

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or I talk to business students now,

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I really encourage them to try
to understand their purpose

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and to do the right
thing from the beginning.

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I'm Vincent Stanley, I work for Patagonia,

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I'm its Director of Philosophy.

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(light, intriguing music)

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I think Patagonia had an element

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of social, but mostly
environmental, consciousness

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from the beginning, because it came out

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of a mountain climbing equipment company.

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And the early employees and the owners

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had a strong sense of
protecting wild places.

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You know, the company's conscience

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has evolved over the past 45 years.

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We did not start out with the
kinds of concerns we have now.

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I think for somebody who's starting out,

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who wants to be responsible,

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who wants to build a business
that can last 100 years,

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wants to have a positive social
and environmental impact,

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it's easy to find allies now.

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It was harder 20 years ago,
but the B Corp movement

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I think is really significant that way.

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One of the challenges of
being a mission driven company

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is you find that you can do things

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when you learn how to
change your practices,

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how to live with constraints
that actually drive innovation.

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When you learn how to do that
and you talk to other people

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who tell you, oh no, that can't be done,

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you just wanna persuade them.

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My own job really comes out
of the Patagonia culture,

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and I do believe in a kind of localism.

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I think every company

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really should respond to its own culture.

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What are its best aspects?

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What are the things that need to change?

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What about the company culture

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would you like to see develop?

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The lesson I've learned from Patagonia

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is that if you're marketing,

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you really should identify
what your company's culture is,

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what your company's personality is.

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Identify those elements that
are what the better angels

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of the company's nature, and use that,

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both in the marketing but
also in all communications

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to suppliers, to employees,

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to the communities that you operate in.

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And what I think would be key
to any mission driven company

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now is to understand both
what your possibilities are

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and what your constraints are.

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And then to develop what you sell

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or how you serve, around those strengths

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and understanding what
your weaknesses are.