Patagonia owner gives away company to fight climate crisis

The owner and founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, has announced that he is giving away the company to an environmental trust and non-profit, with profits set to go towards environmental charities to help fight the climate crisis.

The Chouinard family has split its shareholding between two new entities. The company’s voting stock will now go to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, created to “protect the company’s values”. The trust will have the right to approve key company decisions.

Meanwhile, the company’s non-voting stock will go towards Holdfast Collective, a non-profit “dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature”. Funding for the Collective will come from Patagonia, and any excess profit made after reinvesting in the business will be distributed as a dividend to help fight the climate crisis.

CEO Ryan Gellert and the leadership team will continue to run the business under the direction of the board of directors

In a statement on Patagonia’s site, founder Yvon Chouinard said: “While we’re doing our best to address the environmental crisis, it’s not enough. We need to find a way to put more money into fighting the crisis while keeping the company’s values intact.

“One option was to sell Patagonia and donate all the money. But we couldn’t be sure a new owner would maintain our values or keep our team of people around the world employed. Another path was to take the company public. What a disaster that would have been. Even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility.”

He added: “Truth be told, there were no good options available. So, we created our own. Instead of “going public,” you could say we’re “going purpose.” Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth.”