Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard

Author:Yvon Chouinard
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Yvon, Business, Businesspeople - United States, Businesspeople, General, United States, Personal Memoirs, Business & Economics, Social Responsibility of Business, Biography & Autobiography, Business Ethics, Entrepreneurship, Chouinard, Biography
ISBN: 9780143037835
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2005-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Find the product in one of our retail stores, and have it shipped from there.

Find the item in retail, wholesale, or closeout inventory.

Locate the item in one of our dealers’ shops, and let the dealer make the sale, thereby making two customers happy.

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THE ENVIRONMENTAL COST OF TRANSPORTATION

Our environmental assessment program showed us that the single greatest use of energy in the life span of a product is transportation. For example, a Patagonia shirt requires roughly 110,000 BTUs of energy to manufacture, from acquiring raw materials to making the fabric to sewing a finished shirt. Shipping that item air freight from Ventura to Boston, in a package with eighteen other shirts, takes another 50,000 BTUs per shirt. In other words, it takes half again as much fossil fuel energy to move it once than it did to make it.

This brings up several considerations. One, we should be producing locally whenever possible.

Two, consumers should not be ordering items to be shipped by airfreight simply because it’s convenient, especially if it’s a box of lobsters from Maine or a fresh salad from California. The dollar cost added to the item may be relatively small, but the environmental cost is huge.

Third, it becomes apparent that the global economy is not sustainable. It’s completely dependent on burning up cheap fossil fuel. Shipping goods by rail or by boat uses 400 BTUs per ton for each mile shipped. Truck freight uses more than 3,300 BTUs per ton, and air cargo uses 21,670 BTUs, to move a ton of goods one mile.

When shopping long distance by catalog or on the Internet, you should reconsider ordering that live lobster from Maine, and ask yourself if you really need that pair of pants sent overnight or by second-day air.

—Y. C.

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