With climate change on a rise it is evident that in order for us as a society to become more on track to becoming green, we need more help, especially from well-established companies with deep pockets and a passion for our causes. This will help provide scale and allow for a deeper and broader impact.
One company I would like to highlight today is the well-known clothing brand, Patagonia, which given its mission and deep-rooted leadership on environmental causes, decided to go beyond the myriad of its environmental commitments including a self-imposed 1% earth tax to give away the entire company for the betterment of the environment in an announcement made in Sept 2022.
Patagonia has always had policies in place that benefit the environment however, those just play a small role in the journey that Patagonia has placed itself on. This step taken by Patagonia is extremely important and will hopefully inspire others to take similar actions.
Patagonia’s founder and CEO, Yvon Chouinard, for years prior, has been discussing his growing concern for the environment and it is clear that it wasn’t all just talk; Chouinard had big plans for the future of the world, and Patagonia as a company.
In the September 2022 announcement, Patagonia decided to divide their company into 2 holdings. A small part, an estimated 2% was put into a Patagonia Purpose Trust, and the larger part – 98% was put into the Holdfast Collective.
The main purpose of this Holdfast Collective non-profit is to utilize the main portion of its money from Patagonia to combat climate change. It strives to protect nature and get the world back on track. In a coming blog, I will focus more on the goal of the Holdfast Collective, and I will go further in-depth into their uses for the money. However, to reiterate, large steps, such as the ones taken by Mr. Chouinard, are going to be extremely crucial in the following years and will be large impacts on the war on climate.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html
https://www.patagonia.com/mx/ownership/
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