Fast Company - March 2012

1 4 Patagonia For selling more by encouraging customers to buy less

“Every time we’ve made a decision to do the right thing,” says patagonia founder yvon chouinard, “it ends up being good business.” the company clocked $500 million in 2011 sales, growing almost 30% in each of the past two years—all while setting the bar for sustainability. highlights:

National Marrow
Donor Program
For boosting the art and technology
of electric vehicles
Tesla Motors 13

This year, Tesla motors begins production on its model s, a family sedan—with enough space to seat seven passengers—that’s powered by lithium-ion batteries arranged in an inventive “flat-pack” design. the all-electric model s is already sold out for the year (you’ll need to get on a waiting list for next year’s production run). But the battery technology is what’s driving this company toward its goal of profitability in 2013. tesla’s financial outlook has recently been boosted by lucrative deals to supply components and battery technologies to Daimler, mercedes, and toyota. clearly, tesla knows something about electric cars that the big players don’t.

COMMONTHREADSINITIATIVE patagonia got 24,000 people to pledge to buy less and buy used; it also partnered with eBay to make it easy for people to take the pledge and then buy and sell gear from one another. customers have resold 15,000 patagonia pieces for $500,000 so far. “smart consumption is built around resource conservation,” says rick ridgeway, Vp of environmental initiatives.

SUS TAINABLE APPAREL COALI TION thirty global apparel companies, including nike and Walmart, joined this coalition, which patagonia organized to set sustainable best practices.

MUSIC COLLEC TIVE an online platform lets artists such as pearl Jam donate unreleased tracks, with net proceeds benefiting their favorite environmental charities.

PROVISIONS
to spotlight sustainable fishing practices, the com-
pany will launch an organic wild-salmon jerky this year.

FOR MATCHING
TECHNOLOGY WITH CRITICAL
TRANSPLANT NEEDS
15
For stoking insatiable, year-round demand for professional football NF L

Despite a schedule with the fewest games in sports, the nfL has 180 million fans and record t V ratings. It makes up for a lack of on-field action by transforming everything from highlights to league meetings into events. the next experiment? a venture fund: team owners will contribute up to $3 million a few times a year to invest in businesses that can further incite fan passion. “companies like Espn, Ea, and Direct V—we think we’ve been a big part of their growth,” says nfL Vp neil Glat. “Wouldn’t it have been interesting if we’d gotten equity?”

HO W THE NFL BUILDS DEMAND (TVVIEWERS,INMILLIONS)

HOWNFLFANSGET
THEIR FIX (PERCEN TAGE OF
TIME BY ACTIVITY)

6. 6 Scouting Combine 29 Draft

100 Regular season 84 Preseason

18 2011

39 Watching games ( TV, web, mobile)

155 Playoffs 163 SuperBowl

4 Attending NFL games and events 10 Discussing 5 Video games

5 Fantasy football

8 Reading (print)

7 Reading (web, mobile)

9%Listening (radio,web, mobile)

13 Watching other NFL info ( TV, web, mobile)

Bone-marrow transplants are a
numbers game. Ten thousand Ameri-
cans annually require a transplant from
someone unrelated to help treat leukemia
or lymphoma. Yet only 5,573 received
one worldwide last year. Minneapolis-
based National Marrow Donor Program
(NMDP) is in year two of a technology
overhaul that aims to boost successful
matches to 10,000 a year by 2015. It also
intends to slash the time between match
and transplant—currently about 96
days—by at least 25%. “Patient needs are
growing at a precipitous rate,” says NMDP
CIO Michael Jones, who is leading the
not-for-profit’s retooling. “We’re building
a platform to keep up and get ahead
of those needs.”
Already, the tech effort is paying
off. As Greg Bourdeau at the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute puts it: NMDP’s registry
“is the fundamental go-to tool for any
transplant-center search department.”
The organization has reduced the time to
transplant by 15%, using an online hub
that helps keep donors and recipients on
track during the steps before transplanta-
tion. (Each day cut from the process
increases a patient’s survival odds.) Jones
has also added new matching algorithms
to improve search accuracy. And NMDP
has embraced technology in other ways
too. Its urgent need for donors has led it
to pursue social-media-fueled donor-
recruitment campaigns with groups such
as 100K Cheeks and Do Something. The
efforts have increased annual donations
by up to 60% and have boosted NMDP’s
access to 18. 5 million candidates. “The
ongoing growth and viability of the
registry,” Jones says, “give people hope.”