The Patagonia paradox: We can’t shop our way out of ecological overshoot

The Patagonia paradox

Why do we defend what feels good instead of what is true?

Whenever Patagonia enters the sustainability debate, there is a familiar dynamic. Some point out growth, scale, material extraction — and immediately a chorus rises to defend the brand as “better than most,” “improving,” or “a step in the right direction.” The reasoning sounds rational, but emotionally, it functions as a shield. We are not defending systems change; we are defending the illusion that we don’t need it.

We want Patagonia to be the exception because the alternative is uncomfortable: if even the “ethical” brand cannot operate sustainably in a growth economy, then perhaps no company can. And if that is true, then buying “better” is not the path forward; reducing total consumption is.

This discomfort is the pressure point we keep dancing around.

The comfort of contradiction

Honesty has become the camouflage for continuation.

Transitions are messy, yes. They contain contradictions. But contradiction alone is not evidence of transformation. It is often just how the system maintains itself without appearing stagnant. Patagonia can encourage repair culture, release films about enoughness, champion activism, and donate profits to conservation, while simultaneously expanding product lines, opening new markets, and scaling global production volumes. That is not a paradox resolved. That is paradox monetized.

We reward Patagonia for acknowledging imperfection, but honesty without change is not a pathway; it is a containment strategy. It neutralizes critique before critique becomes pressure. It allows growth to continue while appearing brave.

This, increasingly, is what modern greenwashing looks like.
Not denial — but elegant self-awareness used to protect the status quo.

When consumption becomes activism

The new sustainable fantasy we desperately want to believe

The most powerful shift in Patagonia’s narrative is not the product; it is the story around it. The company does not simply claim to make “green goods.” Instead, it frames purchasing Patagonia as participation in environmental stewardship. The consumer becomes the hero. Buying becomes impact. Shopping becomes climate action. This is not the old greenwashing that said “our product is good for the planet.” This is the new version: “you can be good for the planet by buying our product.”

It is profoundly appealing. It turns consumption into moral identity.
It offers progress without sacrifice. And it’s wrong.

The small-step trap

Why “less bad” is not a stepping stone — it is a stall

We hear it constantly: small steps matter, perfection is the enemy of progress, everyone must be included, and we must be pragmatic. But small steps are only transitional if they lead toward a system that uses fewer materials, less land, and less energy, not if they reinforce and scale the infrastructures of extraction.

Many of these incremental improvements require massive new investment: new “sustainable” factories, expanded recycling infrastructure, electrified logistics, and “green” distribution systems. Once those systems are built, we are locked into decades of continued material throughput. Eventually, someone says:

“We can’t change direction now — we’ve already gone too far.”

This is not transition. It is the sunk-cost fallacy dressed up as climate leadership.
Progress that keeps us on the same road is not progress. It’s delay.

Sustainability is not the path — it’s the destination

Regeneration is the process, and sufficiency is the starting point

Our frameworks have it backwards. Sustainability is not what gets us to a livable future; it is what exists once a livable future is reached. Regeneration is the transition between collapse and stability. It is not soft. It is not incremental. It requires net positive restoration, not slower degradation. And regeneration cannot occur without reducing total economic throughput.

Efficiency only contributes to this if it results in using less. Without sufficiency, efficiency accelerates growth.  Growth accelerates overshoot. Overshoot accelerates collapse.

This is not ideology; it is physics.

The three questions Patagonia cannot answer

Because a growth-based clothing company cannot be truly sustainable

If we want to know whether any company — Patagonia included — is compatible with a post-growth, safe-within-boundaries future, we only need to ask three questions:

1. Sufficiency — do we need this?

Is this product essential? Could society function without new units of it?

Clothing fails here almost immediately. We already have enough apparel on earth to dress humanity for decades. Patagonia cannot claim post-growth if its business requires selling more clothing year after year.

2. Harm reduction — does it lower total planetary pressure, directly or indirectly?

Not per-product emissions, not per-jacket footprint — total.

Recycled polyester still requires energy, still generates microfibers, and still increases impact when scaled. A slightly cleaner supply chain scaled to millions of units is not sustainability, it’s less destructive growth.

3. Full responsibility — does it address all impacts, not just the convenient ones?

This means land use, chemical load, biodiversity disturbance, water extraction, labor equity, waste, and end-of-life circulation. Philanthropy may be generous, but it steps in only after damage is done — it repairs, it does not prevent. Giving after harm is not protection; it’s atonement. And as long as Patagonia continues to scale production, it cannot meet the standard of true prevention.

What a real post-growth Patagonia would look like

Stewardship, not production — durability over volume

A Patagonia aligned with planetary boundaries would not be an apparel company. It would be a clothing stewardship infrastructure:

– Stop producing new garments except when no reclaimed alternative exists
– Build a global repair and lifetime-extension ecosystem
– Recirculate surplus clothing at scale, not sell more of it
– Reduce total throughput instead of refining it
– Become a model of sufficiency, not sustainability rhetoric

It would measure success in reduction, redistribution, and longevity, not revenue. It would be smaller — and more revolutionary.

We are not fighting Patagonia — we are fighting the myth

The myth that we can consume ethically enough to escape physics

Patagonia is not the problem; the system is. The belief is. The soothing fantasy that greener consumption can substitute for less consumption.

People defend Patagonia not because the model is sustainable, but because the alternative threatens our worldview. If even the best is not enough, then incremental change is not change at all. And if consumption cannot save us, then consumption must decrease — and that demands more than branding or transparency. It demands humility. It demands contraction.

It demands we stop applauding the fact that Patagonia admits the paradox and start demanding that it resolves it. Because we cannot buy our way out of overshoot. We cannot efficiently get a way out of overshoot. We cannot enable storytelling that eliminates overshoot.

We can only reduce. And until we accept that, progress reports, even the honest ones, are not signs of transition. They are symptoms of avoidance packaged as courage.

The destination is sustainability.
The pathway is regeneration.
The first step is using less.

Everything else is just marketing.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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