So yeah, they are toxic, but there's one company in West Germany that makes a cotton dye that's not toxic, except maybe the color orange. The color orange is still toxic. Okay, so now we don't do orange. So then we say, well, where's this stuff going to be dyed? Well, we're making flannel shirts, and all the dye houses in Portugal are along this river near Porto, So we go there, and we look at these dye houses, and the ones up the river are pulling river water in. They're dyeing the cloth, and they're putting it right back into the river. By the time you get near the mouth of the river, the river is jet black. And this is a big river. It's absolutely jet black. So the last dye house can't use that water, so they've put in all kinds of cleaning machinery. And so they clean the water before they can use it.

[01:02]

And they dye the cloth. And then they run the water back through the cleaning machinery again, and they're putting pure water into the river. So now, knowing that, now we have a choice. You know, education gives you choices. So, you know, leading an exam in life in business is a real pain in the ass, let me tell you. It adds a complexity that most businessmen don't want to deal with. They don't want to hear about this stuff. But after you've educated yourself, you find out what you're doing, then you have to act. And that's the second step, which is clean up your own act. You know, it doesn't matter whether you're a businessman or you're an individual. The Zen master would say, if you want to change government, don't focus on changing government. you're not going to get anywhere. You've got to change the corporations because, you know, government's just a pawn of the corporations.

[02:05]

Well, if you want to change corporations, you've got to change consumers. That's where the buck stops with us. We are the consumers. We're not citizens anymore. We're consumers. We're the ones that feed the corporations, that feed the government. So we're the ones that have to change. So once you find out and admit to yourself that that we're part of the problem. Then, finally, we can be part of the solution. You know, we're the ones that want to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's us and our consumptive habits. We're the reason why we're in Iraq. We're there for the oil. So we've got to clean up our own act. And so that's where... You know, personally, I think we've got to have a simplify our lives. You know, we have to ask, do we need all this stuff? It's kind of, you know, one of my favorite quotes is from Thoreau, who said, beware of any endeavor that requires new clothes.

[03:12]

So, I mean, do you need yoga pants to do yoga? That's kind of silly as far as I'm concerned. You know, my attitude is consume less but consume better. I mean, the Europeans only consume 25% as much as we do. But when they buy a coat or a jacket or a pair of pants, they buy the best quality they can and they keep it for a long time. You know, this consuming, discarding, consuming, discarding, that's why we're in the hole we're in. So that's what I'm trying to do with my own business. We're trying to question every process, every material we use, and educate ourselves and then act on it. But like I said, we can never be a sustainable company. We can never make a sustainable product. So the third step is to do our penance. You know, as individuals in this day and age, you know, if you can, if you're a good speaker, you got to speak out.

[04:18]

If you're a good writer, you got to write. You've got to volunteer for organizations. We have to do something, because if we just sit back and be complacent, like, let's say, the typical German was during Hitler's reign, you're going to lose your soul. So we all have to do something. And for me, I can't be on the front lines. I would kill somebody, so... Being the owner of a company that employs 1,100 people and being pretty visible... I feel like I have a responsibility to use my company to do some good. And we dig into our pockets. And that's where we take 1% of our sales and we give that away to environmental causes. The reason we give to environmental causes is I think if you take every problem we have in society practically, you can almost

[05:20]

take it back to the causes, is an environmental cause. Whether it's poverty, whether it's crime, it's an estrangement from nature, whatever it is, you know, it's like if you read the book on Ebola and AIDS and those diseases coming out of Central Africa, you'll find that those diseases, there's hundreds of other diseases waiting to host on humans as we cut down the forest. As we eat, you know, bush meat, people are desperate. So, you know, we can spend a lot of money in trying to find cures for these diseases, as we should, but my attitude is, stop cutting the forest. So we give money to organizations that are trying to stop deforestation in the Congo. The fourth part, The fourth step is support civil democracy.

[06:22]

Of all the powerful forces in America, you know, from federal government to state government to local government to whatever you want to name, religions, the most powerful force of all is civil democracy. If you open up the newspaper, And any day of the year you look in there, you'll see that every gain we're making as a society is being made by activists. You know, I didn't vote for this present administration. And, you know, with all levels of government and the media all under conservative control, and with a system that is winner-take-all, we don't have a proportional form of government, even though maybe we got 49% of the vote, We don't have 49% of the say. We have no say. But you can still stay involved in the political process by supporting activism.

[07:27]

If you look at the history of America, look at the Boston Tea Party. There's a bunch of activists dump the tea in the Boston Harbor. The Civil War, you think, oh, well, Lincoln freed the slaves. Well, the slaves were being encouraged to flee the South by the Underground Railroad, which was being funded by Northern philanthropists. They were leaving at such a rate that the South was freaking out. Lincoln just wanted to keep the country together. If you look at civil rights, it wasn't the government that enacted civil rights legislation. It was Rosa Parks, this middle-aged black woman who just didn't want to get off the bus. It was a bunch of black kids who didn't want to go to segregated schools. That's who enacted civil rights. Vietnam. We got out of Vietnam because of activism.

[08:29]

The government didn't want to get out of Vietnam. People say Teddy Roosevelt established Yosemite National Park. It wasn't Teddy Roosevelt. It was John Muir who encouraged Teddy Roosevelt to go camping with him. in Yosemite and sleep under the redwoods and ditched the Secret Service and got Roosevelt all fired up and went back and then did a national park. But John Muir was the man. You know, women's suffrage, if we ever get out of Iraq, it's going to be because of activism. So, anyway, that's what we do with our 1%. One of the the last part of our five step is to influence other companies and influence other people we're not going to save the world by ourselves so we have to lead other people into doing the right thing and the only way to lead is by example that's the only way you know if I had a business that did all the right things and everything but didn't make a profit I wouldn't get the business world to respect me at all

[09:42]

that say, oh, those guys can do that, but they don't make a profit. So I have to be profitable. I have to act just like a regular business. I can't be a pseudo-environmental organization. Our people who do environmental assessment and ask all those questions are in contact with lots of other companies, and we're sharing information, and when one company, you know, finds an a better way to make something or a better process that is less harmful. We share that information together. Proudest thing I've done, actually, is I started an organization called 1% for the Planet, which is an alliance of now 224 other companies that are all pledged to give 1% of their sales to environmental causes. So the way it works is... Each company gives to the organizations of their choice. We don't give the money away. There's just a small charge to belong to the organization.

[10:47]

We just check to see that they give the money away. It's just very small little companies. I found that when a company gets to be a medium size or something, they get kind of tight with their money. When they're small, they're still very... You know, almost all the charity... given away in America is given away by individuals. Corporations only give away 3% of all the philanthropy. It seems like the richer you get, the less money you give away. So there are barbershops and mountain guides and vineyards. One of the most notable members is Jack Johnson, the singer. You'll see that 1% for the planet logo on the back of the CDs. So, you know, a lot of people think, well, you know, this is great. There's, you know, Patagonia gives all this money away. So, okay, when I get rich, I'm going to start giving some money away too.

[11:48]

But you know what? If you're a true capitalist, you're going to understand that $10 given away today is going to do a lot more good than $100 given away 10 years from now. Because that $10 starts working right now, and it just accumulates and gets more and more valuable. So think about that. Yeah, the last part of our mission statement, which we adapted, is to use business to implement, to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. And so that's, for me, that's the main reason I'm in business right now. I never wanted to be a businessman. But I guess I am one. I guess I probably will be one for a long time. But that's the reason I'm in business. So that's what I have to say today. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[12:43]

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