...Patagonia Problem Patagonia, a highly recognized brand that manufactures high end outdoor gear, refers to the Fair Labor Association’s accredited monitors for monitoring its manufacturing standards. The conflict of interest arises with the methods FLA uses to monitor its corporate affiliates like Patagonia. FLA allows its affiliates to pick the factories that need to be inspected as well as the inspectors who will be conducting these inspections. The affiliates are also responsible for compensating these monitors. As a result, FLA, which claims to be a third party monitor, ceases to be one thereby allowing its corporate affiliates to monitor themselves. The other issue in the case is that since Patagonia is a privately held company, the standards and procedures it expects of its manufacturers and suppliers are not made public. This lack of transparency does not necessarily help Patagonia back its claim operating 100% organic, since the data that proves it is not available to the public. The third issue is the fact that Patagonia enables farmers to pick their own certifier to certify the cotton fiber and production. This could pose a problem as farmers may jeopardize quality by using certifiers that are cheaper and require fewer and less thorough inspections to cut costs. The totality of these issues raises questions whether Patagonia is genuine in their efforts to promote the use of organic textiles in its effort to tackle the environment crisis or is it another case of greenwashing...
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...Muhammad Ateeb Khan 260362190 Patagonia Case Company Objectives: To earn sufficient profit by delivering innovative, excellent, useful products and service to customers without the pursuit of growth for growth’s sake. To reduce or reverse the environmental harm caused by company operations Strategy: Designing high-quality outdoor equipment and clothing. “Quality” is the way of doing business for Patagonia. This includes Quality products, quality service and quality life of employees. Internal Controls: The company initiated a program called “The workbook process” that was aimed to get the employees actively involved with the companys performance and also to assess which work groups were meeting their targets and which weren’t. The Workbook process involved making every department’s and corporation’s plan visible to all employees and encouraged employees to become actively involved in the planning and operating review process. This process also made monthly department and corporate financial and operating repots visible to all employees. This new system was initiated as an improvement to the company culture of concern for employees’ quality of life, which in turn reflected motivation to serve company objectives The Company uses results controls to monitor and direct the actions of its employees. The workbook process was designed for this very reason so that employees can be fully aware of the objectives their group needs to accomplish for the financial year and...
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...What Darwin Didn’t Know: Darwin's First Clues: By David Quammen, Photograph by Luciano Candisani, MInden Pictures Summary The journey of young Charles Darwin aboard His Majesty's Ship Beagle, during the years 1831-36, is one of the best known and most neatly mythologized episodes in the history of science. Darwin visited the Galápagos archipelago in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and there beheld giant tortoises and finches. The finches, many species of them, were distinguishable by differently shaped beaks, suggesting adaptations to particular diets. The tortoises, island by island, carried differently shaped shells. These clues from the Galápagos led to conclude that Earth's living diversity has arisen by an organic process of descent with modification or evolution, as it's now known, and that natural selection is the mechanism. His theory developed slowly, secretively, and his book, The Origin of Species, didn't appear until 1859. Many scientists, along with some Victorian clergymen, resisted its evidence and arguments for decades afterward. The reality of evolution became widely accepted during Darwin's lifetime, but his particular theory, with natural selection as prime cause, didn't triumph until about 1940, after it had been successfully integrated with genetics. Apart from those clarifications, the most interesting point missed by the simplified tale is this: Darwin's first real clue toward evolution came not in the Galápagos but three years before, on a blustery beach...
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...The Galapagos in September Charles Darwin first visited the Galapagos Islands in September, exploring the islands and discovering creatures that remain today; including giant tortoises and marine iguanas- while marveling at the volcanic landscapes and the diversity found within their borders. True to form, the islands in September are alive with creatures great and small in the midst of transition. Giant tortoises on Santa Cruz make the journey back from the coast to the lush highlands of the island. Fur seals are beginning to breed, and female sea lions are giving birth, with males fiercely protecting their harems from other bulls. It is a cool month to visit the archipelago, in both senses of the word. The chilly Humboldt Current mixes with the warmer waters of the Galapagos producing a thriving under water eco-system brimming with marine life. Schools of reef-fish feed off of plankton, dolphins and sea turtles feed on the fish, and Orca whales sit at the top of the food chain; chasing after the larger creatures of the sea. Around Darwin, Wolf, and off the western shores of Isabela Islands, humpback whales and their young are often spotted- as are massive whale sharks, the largest creature in the ocean. September also marks a waning of the number of people who visit the islands; kids are back in school after the summer break, and parents are busy getting ready for the upcoming holidays. It is traditionally a period when the locals enjoy the islands, making it a great time...
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...During late April, and early May of the year 1836 Charles Darwin landed on a French isle called “Mauritius”. Rounding the northern tip of Mauritius, Darwin said that it met all of the expectations, by many well known descriptions of the scenery. He depicted the island to have forest filled mountains, and also portrayed the land as he approached to be bright green and have very tropical aspects to it (Darwin Diary pg.509). “The centre of the island consists of a great platform, surrounded by old broken basaltic mountains, with their strata dipping seawards. The central platform, formed of comparatively recent streams of lava, is of an oval shape, thirteen geographical miles across, in the line of its shorter axis. The exterior bounding mountains come into that class of structures called Craters of Elevation, which are supposed to have been formed not like ordinary craters, but by a great and sudden upheaval. There appears to me to be insuperable objections to this view: on the other hand, I can hardly believe, in this and in some other cases, that these marginal crateriform mountains are merely the basal remnants of immense volcanoes, of which the summits either have been blown off, or swallowed up in subterranean abysses”(Darwin Diary pg 511). When Darwin reached the top of the mountain calculating it to be about 2,600 feet in elevation, he said the countryside looked predominantly cultivated (Voyage Journal pg.572). M. Lesson, in the voyage of the Coquille, has stated, that...
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