The following is excerpted from a conference paper I presented at the International Public Relations Research Conference, hosted by the University of Miami, in March of 2015. My study examines the evolution of corporate social responsibility into a form of organizational activism, with Patagonia’s well-regarded DamNation documentary as a case in point.
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In March of 2014, popular outdoor apparel designer Patagonia premiered its DamNation documentary at the South by Southwest festival held in Austin, Texas, winning an audience choice award and putting the environmental spotlight on the damming of rivers and other watersheds in the United States. The film was positioned by Patagonia as an “odyssey across America that explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our own future is bound to the life and health of our rivers.”
The documentary marks a compelling development in the evolution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as public relations practice. CSR suffers from competing definitions in both professional and academic circles (Dahlsrud, 2008). Often, it refers to the confluence of social or environmental responsibility within business operations or economic models. Patagonia’s DamNation campaign, drawing from a mix of commercial acumen and grassroots organizing, is different in that it moved CSR closer to a form of social and environmental activism. Long admired for its social accountability, Patagonia has “in recent years has become more of an outspoken advocate for environmental and corporate responsibility” (Los Angeles Times, 2014).
Founder and owner Yvon Chouinard would not argue with this assessment; his company has long been able to engage activists connected to the company’s causes. For example, it established the Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference in 1994, where seasoned activists train members of environmental groups which are supported by the clothing company. More recently Patagonia has sought to discourage the kind of unbridled consumerism that takes place on the Friday after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday – the so-called Black Friday – by funding advertisements that say “don’t buy our products” (Fast Company, 2015). DamNation is just the latest and perhaps most visible step in Patagonia’s evolution from corporate social responsibility to a direct advocacy or activism.
After its South by Southwest launch, DamNation had its U.S. theatrical release in New York City, coupled with a nine-city tour of regional film premieres and 23 free screenings across the U.S. These screenings were often organized with grassroots organizations. For example, in Eugene, Oregon, the film was hosted by the Western Environmental Law Center and the environmental group Save Our Wild Salmon, and the event was sponsored by a salmon-safe certified local business. This rollout was followed in the fall by a tour of the film to Patagonia retail stores. Shortly after, the documentary reached a much wider audience on Netflix and other streaming video platforms. Despite its mobility and early accolades, the film was not universally acclaimed. Taking aim at Patagonia’s subjective approach, the Hollywood Reporter argued that the filmmakers “assume viewers already lean toward their side of the argument… they don’t make much effort to pit conflicting values against each other with statistics or a devil’s-advocate argument.” The New York Times chimed in that Patagonia’s documentary “lumps together its grievances and interviews in a way that feels scattered and geared toward those inclined to agree” (New York Times, 2014).
Yet other observers have equated Patagonia’s campaign as proof that business ethics – a driver of CSR – can bear out innovation: “High moral values can provide a source for innovation. They can give a clear point of differentiation, a better image and a business advantage” (Innovation Excellence, 2014). Further on-the-ground results show that the DamNation documentary has found strongly sympathetic audiences willing to parlay their sentiment into real action on behalf of the cause or the company. For example, university students at Whitman College in Washington State, in a bid to remove four dams along the lower Snake River, have started a student advocacy group inspired by the documentary called Rethink Dams. In their bid to decommission the dams in the southeast corner of Washington State, the group is reaching out to students on campus, as well as citizens of the city of Walla Walla and its outlying region (The Pioneer, 2015.)
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Where does one company’s corporate social responsibility stop and social activism start? Patagonia’s DamNation campaign represents one case where the demarcation may be more apparent than others. The company has openly publicized its “activist” activities, some of which are less central to its business model as a designer of outdoor clothing and gear than others. As media activism, the DamNation documentary and Patagonia’s producing role had many of the characteristics that define social movements. The company diffused an environmental idea by leveraging its considerable economic resources and a network of loyal consumers and retailers. Such an approach to an economic and environmental issue — one with implications for governments and citizens across the United States – is not without risk. Dodd and Supa (2014) note that corporate social advocacy, the act of firms taking a public stance on socio-political issues, can be controversial – serving to attract like-minded activists while potentially alienating stakeholder groups. Patagonia certainly went beyond a high-profile position on a contentious issue. It actually financed, distributed and widely promoted an activist documentary. Notable is that the production celebrated certain forms of civil disobedience, such as trespassing onto government properties and acts of vandalism at dam sites. Patagonia’s CEO Rose Marcanio noted herself in an interview with Fast Company magazine that such alienation was a risk the company was aware of and willing to take, regardless of the financial fallout:
This documentary took on an issue we didn’t feel that anyone else could take on in the way that we could. Any fight worth fighting is the sort of attitude that we take…We don’t sit back and go, “Well, what kind of an ROI could we get on a film? (Fast Company, 2015)
At the same time, Patagonia has continued a long tradition of environmental activists strategically making their voices heard in the public sphere. Over four decades ago, a long-simmering controversy over the expansion of the Ross Dam on the Skagit River in the Pacific Northwest underscored the crucial role of public opinion in mitigating the growth of such infrastructure. In his 1974 thesis devoted to the Ross Dam controversy, Terry Simmons – himself one of the original members of Vancouver, BC-founded Greenpeace — argued prophetically that there could only be such public debate around the issue of damming when there also existed a public forum:
There would be no controversy without active support from members of the media. Opponents of the dam have received good press on the whole. Media coverage generally has been carefully orchestrated in order to achieve maximum impact for the mutual advantage of the media and the conservationists…. A public controversy is in large part a media campaign (Simmons, 1974).
To this end, Patagonia willingly accepted such contention as part of its own strategic communication campaign. Given that its chief stakeholders – its customers – are ostensibly enthusiasts of the wilderness, Patagonia was acting from a foundation of corporate social responsibility. The documentary’s diffusion of the company’s environmental ideology, however, transformed this CSR into a real activism that was taken up by students, activists and community organizers alike.
My own research on this campaign, based on a survey with experimental conditions, found overall support for action on this environmental issue and Patagonia’s actions on the whole. This indicates that Patagonia had launched its documentary from an initial position of strength – one that would have been assessed based on thousands of customer interactions and public support for its CEO’s statements. Such support for Patagonia’s overall campaign – documentary notwithstanding – was likely bolstered by a customer base that would stand to ultimately benefit from the removal of dams, given the barrier such infrastrure represents to enthusiasts of sports such as flyfishing, kayaking, and white water rafting.
To this end, what Patagonia created was not a social movement in the classic sense, but a controversy as campaign that leveraged the loyalty of its stakeholders and the insights of its leadership into a genuine opportunity to shift public policy and enact important environmental change.
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