How to be a good company in 2023? Patagonia seems to know. The outdoor clothing company took the top slot in this year’s Axios Harris Poll 100 brand reputation survey having supported environmental causes for decades and scored highly among both Republicans and Democrats in the US even though repeated polls show Democrats rank climate higher on a list of priorities. Patagonia was scoring highly last year even before Yvon Chouinard, its founder, went a step further and restructured the company so every dollar not reinvested goes towards protecting the planet. “People buy brands from companies they admire; to them, corporate reputation and brand marketing are the same,” says John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. The secret is to espouse good values and have a record of acting on them.
