Since 1996, every piece of Patagonia garment has been made of organic cotton. Thereby successfully reducing carbon emissions, various pollution and resource waste in the clothing industry.

Since 1985, Patagonia has pledged 1% of sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. To encourage more businesses to join this initiative, Yvon established 1% for the Planet*with Craig Mathews (the founder of Blue Ribbon File) in 2002. So far, it has gathered 15 members and helped to direct hundreds of millions of dollars to environmental nonprofits around the world. 

* 1% for the Planet is an international organization whose members contribute at least one percent of their annual sales to environmental causes.

In 2012, Worn Wear was launched by Patagonia as their product life extension hub. It builds up a platform that provides recycling, trade-in and repair services and enables people to share their stories with their worn clothes.

Today, the company owns and operates the largest apparel repair center in North America and repairs more than 100,000 items each year in 72 repair centers globally.

In the 1980s, the company decided to stop using plastic bags and disposable paper cups in the staff canteen. Patagonia became the first company in the United States to use recycled-content paper as their product catalogs, which resulted in saving 15,000 trees.