Patagonia’s Path to Carbon Neutrality by 2025 (Case Study Sample)

This week's case concerns Patagonia's goal to be carbon neutral by the 2025. Bear in mind that the case was written in 2018! The purpose of the case is to present an example of a mission-driven company with a history of social responsibility as it wrestles with one of the most pressing and complex environmental issues in history. Our review of this case will allow insight into how a firm sets such audacious goals, how it moves its organization, processes, culture and leadership towards that goal, and what external and internal factors allow it to move in this direction. Patagonia seeks to reduce emissions to zero while while still growing its company. It also wants to achieve carbon neutrality in such a way that other interested companies can replicate. The question for the prep paper: Evaluate Patagonia's plan to become carbon neutral by 2025 and whether it can establish pathways that other firms can replicate. In answering this question, consider Patagonia's unique history, structure and mission and whether these qualities can be emulated. Please make sure there is a clear understanding of who the customers are + what the value proposition is + how the company does it. Please also refer and bring interesting points from the Exhibits. Patagonia's main objective and vision is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025 in a way that other companies can follow suit. The push for the agenda is backed by the beliefs of the stakeholders and owners of the company with the aim of contributing to the great good of the world through significant reductions in carbon emissions. However, there are numerous challenges to overcome in the pursuit of this goal. There are already various solutions for internal carbon emissions in Patagonia. However, it is the permissions from external sources such as transportation, production, and construction that pose a greater challenge to Patagonia. As such, Patagonia's scope three emissions are the biggest challenge. Notably, the company does not want to use other common options that have been used by other companies in attempts to achieve carbon neutrality, because of the different issues associated with those solutions. The fact that Patagonia is growing larger each year can be considered as both good and bad. On one hand, it is good for the company to grow, while on the other hand, it is much harder for a bigger company to stay carbon neutral. This fact means that the growth of the company has to be matched with new Solutions to keep the greenhouse gas emissions down in line with the goal for carbon neutrality by 2025. These emission reduction efforts will involve costs that will have to be covered by Patagonia or the consumers. Therefore, for a solution to be viable, it needs to be as cost-effective as possible to bring added value to the product. Patagonia needs different strategies to deal with emissions in scope one, two, and three. Both scope one and two are easier to deal with than scope three. For instance, Patagonia has taken various steps to deal with issues arising from scope one and two, such as through the installation of solar panels in the Australia and US headquarters, the Reno distribution center, and in stores source..