Future-Proofing You

14Fulfilling the Need for Profitable Sustainability

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.

—Chief Seattle, leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish people

BLACK FRIDAY, THE FRIDAY after Thanksgiving in the United States, is the traditional kickoff of the Christmas shopping season, which accounts for 20 percent of most retailers' annual sales. With the average American spending approximately $1,050 on gifts, the competition to lure customers into one's shop with heavily discounted Black Friday doorbuster specials is intense.¹ By running costly ad campaigns for their reduced price one‐day bargains, stores create a frenzy of rabid consumers lining up and even camping out overnight. Against the backdrop of all this clamoring for a piece of the $7 billion being spent on this one day, imagine the shock readers of the New York Times experienced in 2011 when they saw a full‐page advertisement with the massive headline “Don't Buy This Jacket.”²

Beneath the photo of a Patagonia jacket, the ad read “It's Black Friday, the day in the year retail turns from red to black and starts to make real money. But Black Friday, and the culture of consumption it reflects, puts the economy of natural systems that support all life firmly in the red. We're now using the resources of one‐and‐a‐half planets on our one and only planet.” The ad went on to explain that while Patagonia would like to be ...