Patagonia to Shoppers: Don’t Shop if You Don’t Need To

[Flaxbee]

Are you going to shop a lot this season? Do your family and friends expect it? Or are you rethinking your consumption patterns?

We haven't really "done" Christmas in years -- I hate to sound like a grinch, but the entire consuming frenzy irritates me greatly. We still try to do family things - dinners, baking, etc. - events that don't revolve around things. Gifts are still important to my mom, so we humor her to a certain extent, but for me and my sisters and our families, we've pretty much opted out. Usually one special gift if someone really wants or needs something, or if we see something that a loved one would really enjoy, but we do not shop just because retailers want us to...

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http://www.lifeedited.com/patagonia-to-shoppers-dont-shop-if-you-dont-need-to/

While most companies are dangling the carrot of ludicrous deals this week–one of, if not the, busiest shopping week of the year–outdoor clothing company Patagonia has another message: Don’t shop if you don’t need to. The company’s two year old “Common Threads Initiative” is trying to get people to think differently about when, how and why they buy.

The initiative has a sequence of suggestions and questions the potential shopper can run through:

Reduce. Do I need this?
Repair. Can I fix what I already have?
Reuse. If I can’t repair the thing I want to replace, can it be sold to someone who wants it or used somewhere else like a charity?
Recycle. Can the materials of my old thing be remade into something else?
Reimagine. Can we change global consumer habits to create a sustainable planet?