The Green Transition Doesn't Need More Heroes. It Needs Better Architecture.

And it starts with something I should have said the first time around.

A few years ago, I watched a founder do something I've never seen anyone else do. He donated 100% of his company to a non-profit foundation dedicated to biodiversity. Not a percentage. Not a pledge. The whole thing. Every euro of profit, after costs and taxes, now flows to protecting the natural world.

I was inside that company for over a decade. I helped scale it from a regional operation to a "pocket-size multinational" present in fifty-two countries. When a private equity offer came in, I placed an anonymous ballot box at the entrance so the team could have their say. I put the results on the founder's desk. He read them, turned down the money, and started asking a different question entirely.

So when it was time to put those values into the supply chain, I thought the hard part was done. The founder had already made the ultimate sacrifice. Surely the rest was just execution.

It wasn't.

The company attempted to move part of its production from Southeast Asia to Europe. It felt like the right thing to do. It made for a better story. But it remained marginal: no one could match the quality and texture of the original suppliers' products. Meanwhile, the portfolio continued to ship globally. The carbon footprint of logistics didn't shrink because a fraction of the production moved closer to home.

The sacrifice was genuine. But the architecture? The architecture wasn't there.

I wrote recently that purpose requires sacrifice. I stand by that. But that conversation left out the operational half of the story. Sacrifice without architecture is just expensive theatre. And the green transition is full of it.

The measurement problem

When Patagonia published its first sustainability report last year, one number should have stopped every conversation in the industry. Approximately 75% of their products are made of polyester and nylon. Plastic, in plain terms.

The sector's response? Applause. One of the most sustainable brands in the world, they called it.

Now, let that sink in for a second.

Veronica Bates Kassatly is an analyst who has made a career out of dismantling the fashion industry's environmental claims. She once told me something that I haven't been able to shake off. "The most sustainable brand," she wrote, "is the one with the lowest impact per wear. Unfortunately, everyone seems to think sustainability is about marketing."

Her research with the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights informed the Norwegian Consumer Authority's ruling against the Higg MSI. And the numbers don't lie: we are well into planetary overshoot on novel entities, primarily plastics. A sustainable fashion brand, by any common sense definition, has to use little to no plastic. Yet here we are, celebrating a brand that is three-quarters synthetic.

Patagonia's products last, and that helps the denominator: more wear, lower impact per wear. But if the numerator, total environmental impact, is calculated with tools that undercount plastics and microplastic pollution, even a good ratio is built on bad maths. Remember this tension. We'll come back to it.

And it gets worse. The recycled polyester narrative, which half the industry hides behind, is what Veronica calls a "bad infinity." Bottles get diverted into fabric, worn a few times, and thrown away. For every bottle diverted, a replacement must be manufactured. The line pretends to be a circle. The planet doesn't care about the branding.

Most sustainability reports measure impact at the factory gate (cradle-to-gate). Not cradle-to-grave. They count what happens during production and ignore what happens during use and disposal. Think of it as measuring a car's speed at a traffic light and calling it performance data. Most Life Cycle Assessments weigh water use so heavily that they drown out climate impact. In a year when actuaries warned that three degrees of warming could kill half the global population, we are measuring the wrong things with the wrong tools.

No amount of heroism fixes a broken thermometer.

But broken measurement is just one part of the problem.

Three depths, three very different results

After fifteen years of watching companies attempt green transitions across pet food, consumer goods, and manufacturing, I can tell you: sustainability plays out at three distinct depths. And the depth you choose determines whether it makes a difference.

The communication layer is where most companies live. The sustainability report exists, but it changes nothing operational. The logo goes green. The annual report gets a nature photo. Internally, procurement still optimises for cost, sales still chases volume, and the supply chain manager rolls their eyes every time the CEO mentions the environment at an all-hands meeting.

This is sustainability as window dressing. Everyone knows it. Nobody says it.

The product layer is more interesting because the intent is real. This is where companies invest genuine resources in making better products.

Namuk, the Swiss children's outdoor brand, makes clothing that lasts three times as long as competitors'. They run a repair service. They produce upcycled collections from fabric remnants. They use PrimaLoft Bio, a biodegradable insulation made from recycled fibres. Over 500 parents confirmed the durability claims. That's engineering, not storytelling.

Methods Footwear, founded by Dutch designer Véronique Pustjens-Baer, has designed a modular sneaker with five components, each of which is individually recyclable or biodegradable. The product is born already designed for its second life.

Both companies operate within a conventional business model. The product is better. The system around it is the same. Buy, use, discard. The line is slower, maybe, but it's still a line. By the logic of impact per wear, both are moving in the right direction: longer product life means lower impact per use. Product layer sustainability is real progress. It just doesn't redesign the architecture around it.

The architecture layer is where sustainability becomes the operating system of the business. MUD Jeans, the Dutch denim company founded by Bert van Son, is the clearest example I've found. Their Lease A Jeans model charges 7.99 euros per month. After 12 months, you can keep the jeans, return them, or swap them. Returned jeans become raw material for new ones.

But the architecture goes deeper than the business model. Every design decision serves the circular system. No leather patches, because leather can't be recycled with cotton. Only organic and recycled cotton. Stainless steel buttons that can be separated cleanly. Because every material returns to the production cycle, their LCA numbers are more meaningful than most: the measurement captures a genuine loop, not a one-way trip to landfill. The results reflect that: 92% less water, 47% less land, 66% less CO2 compared to the industry standard. B Corp certified, top 5% globally for environmental impact.

Bert van Son recently shared something that stuck with me. He invested his entire personal wealth to help MUD Jeans through its early years. "That is heavy," he wrote. "It takes its toll. But I did it because I believe in circularity." After fourteen years, he has stepped back from daily operations, making space for the company to move forward without relying on a single person's conviction. This is what it looks like when every decision, from the button to the lease terms to the founder's own financial exposure, is designed to make the system work.

Planted, the Swiss plant-based food company, shows what architectural sustainability looks like in a completely different sector. Their facility runs on 100% renewable energy. 80% of their retail PET packaging is recycled. They publish LCAs conducted with Eaternity showing 87% less CO2 and 90% less water versus conventional meat equivalents. B Corp certified with a score above 90.

But what makes Planted genuinely interesting is not the score. It's their honesty about the contradiction. They admit that growth increases absolute impact. Their new German plant targets net zero, but it's still a target, not a result. This transparency is rare. And it's exactly what separates architectural sustainability from the communication layer: you measure everything, including what makes you look bad.

The Patagonia paradox

Everyone cites Patagonia. Almost nobody asks the uncomfortable question: Is this a model, or a beautiful exception?

This is the same company I flagged earlier for being three-quarters plastic. The same company whose repair programme genuinely extends product life. The same company whose LCA numbers benefit from a measurement system that undercounts the very material most of their products are made of. That's the paradox. Patagonia is simultaneously the most cited example and the most misleading one.

Patagonia works because Yvon Chouinard spent fifty years building a culture before transferring ownership to an environmental trust. The company had decades to iterate, a founder with absolute conviction, a customer base that self-selected for values alignment, and enough scale to absorb the cost of doing things differently.

That is a result. But telling a Swiss founder with 80 employees to follow in Patagonia's footsteps is like telling a weekend jogger to run like Kipchoge. Technically correct. Practically useless.

So the more honest question becomes: what can a mid-size company with physical products actually do starting Monday morning, given its resources?

The Patagonia paradox is not a reason to give up on the green transition. It's a reason to think differently about architecture. Not fifty-year culture transformations. Not ownership transfers to environmental trusts. Smaller, more deliberate structural choices that change how a business actually operates.

1. Pre-ordering and just-in-time production eliminate the guesswork that leads to waste. Rifò, the Italian regenerated-textile company based in Prato, produces only on demand: customers receive a 10% discount for waiting, and the company has no unsold inventory. Km 0 production in Italy's textile district cuts logistics costs and keeps the entire supply chain visible. You never manufacture something nobody wants.
2. Co-production with partner suppliers means investing in the people who already make your products, rather than chasing cheaper alternatives. Shared machinery, training on zero-waste cutting, and capacity that grows with you. This builds economies of scale without sacrificing control or relocating your conscience.
3. Repair-as-a-service turns product longevity from a cost centre into a revenue stream. Repair kits, pop-up workshops, and refurbishment programs. Patagonia does this at a global scale, but the principle works at any size. Namuk already offers it. It extends product life, deepens customer relationships, and generates recurring revenue.

Architecture requires a translator

The green transition does not need more heroes. It does not need more founders donating their companies. And it certainly does not need more sustainability reports that measure the wrong things with the wrong tools.

It needs better architecture. Systems where every decision, from sourcing to pricing to incentive structures, serves the same strategic logic. Where what gets measured actually matters. Where the supply chain manager and the CEO are looking at the same dashboard and drawing the same conclusions.

And, as with any architectural project, this kind of work requires a translator. Someone who sits between the vision and the spreadsheet. Someone who turns the founder's intention into operational reality. Because founders have conviction. Operations have constraints. And the gap between the two is where most green transitions quietly go to die.

Sacrifice without architecture is expensive theatre. Good products without a system behind them are a start, but not yet a strategy. And a sustainability report that doesn't change how you operate is a PowerPoint.

Sources and References

Veronica Bates Kassatly: Analyst and consultant, co-author of "The Great Greenwashing Machine Part 2" with the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights. Developed the "impact per wear" framework. Her analysis informed the Norwegian Consumer Authority's 2022 ruling against the Higg MSI. LinkedIn

Patagonia Sustainability Report (2024): First comprehensive report revealing ~75% polyester/nylon product composition. Patagonia

MUD Jeans: Founded in 2012 by Bert van Son. Lease A Jeans model, B Corp certified, top 5% globally for environment. 92% less water, 47% less land, and 66% less CO2 than the industry standard. Won Koning Willem I-prijs 2022. MUD Jeans

Namuk: Swiss children's outdoor brand, Wetzikon (ZH). Products confirmed 3x more durable by 500+ parents. Repair service, ReUse platform, upcycled collections. Green Business Award finalist. Namuk

Methods Footwear: Founded by Véronique Pustjens Baer. Modular sneaker, 5 recyclable/biodegradable components, designed for disassembly. Produced in Portugal. Methods

Planted: Swiss plant-based food company. B Corp >90, 100% renewable energy, LCA by Eaternity showing 87% less CO2 and 90% less water vs conventional meat. Planted

Rifò: Italian regenerated textile company, B Corp certified. Pre-order model, zero-waste production. Rifò

Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (2025): Report on climate tipping points: 3°C+ by 2050 could trigger a cascade leading to ~50% global population loss. IFA

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