PATAGONIA FOUNDER TRANSFERS ALL COMPANY PROFITS TOWARD FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE
“Instead of exploiting natural resources to make shareholder returns, we are turning shareholder capitalism on its head by making the Earth our only shareholder.”
By selling a company or taking it public, you risk changing its core values.
To avoid such changes, Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard has just set a brilliant example of environmental corporate leadership.
The 83-year old billionaire has just transferred almost all of the company’s stock to a non-profit aimed towards fighting climate change. The remaining 2% and all decision making authority was donated to a trust that will oversee Patagonia’s mission ad values.
So basically, Chouinard, his family and a team of lawyers have found a way to keep Patagonia a for-profit company while still directing 100% of said profits toward protecting our environment.
“Instead of ‘going public’, you could say we’re ‘going purpose’,” said Chouinard. “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.”