The company is known for its activism.
(Photo: AP)
new York The founder and previous owner of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, has donated his company to charitable foundations. According to his own statement, the 83-year-old wants to make his assets available for environmental protection and, in particular, to finance measures against the climate crisis.
“We had to find a way to put more money into fighting this crisis while keeping the company’s assets intact,” Chouinard said in a statement released Wednesday (local time) on the Patagonia website.
According to the New York Times, Patagonia’s company value is around three billion dollars (3.01 billion euros). Any profits – about $100 million a year, according to the report – that are not reinvested in the company are to be used in the future through specially created foundations for the fight against global warming and for nature conservation. “Hopefully this will inspire a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Chouinard told the newspaper.
Patagonia is known for hiking and winter clothing and a show of activism. In 2020, Patagonia was one of the first companies to join an advertising boycott of well-known brands against Facebook. “Facebook’s business model is based on disinformation and hateful statements,” emphasized the brand’s European boss, Ryan Gellert, in an interview with Handelsblatt. The label has a moral obligation to stop supporting the social network’s practices through advertising spending.
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(No) status symbol of the financial elite
The entrepreneur and environmental activist Yvon Chouinard founded the company in 1973 and cultivated the image of a company with high moral standards. Patagonia has been using only organic cotton for a quarter of a century. For a long time, one percent of annual sales has gone to environmental protection organizations.
Patagonia is trying to do a balancing act: On the one hand, the company sewed calls into their clothing to vote Donald Trump out of office. On the other hand, the company wants to grow worldwide. For years, the company’s expensive fleece vests have been the preferred business outfit of many US investment bankers. Patagonia tried to resist becoming a status symbol for the financial elite – and quickly stopped accepting large orders from financial houses.
Now Chouinard, his wife and their two adult children are giving away their shares in Patagonia. The non-voting shares of the company are transferred to the so-called Holdfast Collective, which is intended to make the profits that are not reinvested available for climate protection and the protection of biodiversity.
The voting shares will vest in the Patagonia Purpose Trust, the company said in a statement. The trust is intended to create a permanent legal structure to defend the company’s values, it said. The trust is to be managed by family members and close advisors.
Ryan Gellert will continue to serve as CEO, and the Chouinard family will remain on the board. “Earth is now our only shareholder,” says Patagonia’s website.
With material from dpa.
More: The new Patagonia boss is keeping the activist course