Patagonia founder gives the company away

Almost 50 years since Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard began his experiment in responsible business, he and his family have transferred ownership to two trusts working to enhance the planet.

Patagonia Purpose Trust now owns all the voting stock and will work to help demonstrate, as a for-profit business, that capitalism can work for the Earth.

Meanwhile, the Holdfast Collective owns all the non-voting stock and will use every dollar received from Patagonia to protect nature and biodiversity, support thriving communities and fight the environmental crisis.

Each year, profits that are not reinvested back into the business will be distributed by Patagonia as a dividend to the Holdfast Collective to help fight the climate crisis. The company projects that it will pay out an annual dividend of roughly $100 million, depending on the health of the business.

Yvon said: “It’s been a half-century since we began our experiment in responsible business. If we have any hope of a thriving planet 50 years from now, it demands all of us doing all we can with the resources we have. As the business leader I never wanted to be, I am doing my part. Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth, we are using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source. We’re making Earth our only shareholder. I am dead serious about saving this planet.”

Patagonia will continue to give one per cent of sales each year to grassroots activists and the business also confirmed that its leadership team will not change.

Ryan Gellert will continue to serve as CEO and the Chouinard family will continue to sit on Patagonia’s board, along with Kris Tompkins, Dan Emmett, Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Charles Conn (chair of the board) and Ryan Gellert.

The Chouinard family will also guide the company’s controlling shareholder, the Patagonia Purpose Trust, electing and overseeing Patagonia’s board of directors as well as the philanthropic work performed by the Holdfast Collective.

Ryan Gellert added: “Two years ago, the Chouinard family challenged a few of us to develop a new structure with two central goals. They wanted us to both protect the purpose of the business and immediately and perpetually release more funding to fight the environmental crisis.

“We believe this new structure delivers on both and we hope it will inspire a new way of doing business that puts people and planet first.”

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