Yvon Chouinard
One piece of news, from a few days ago, is resonating a lot and, read so suddenly, actually leaves one astonished.
News given directly from Yvon Chouinard, founder of the Patagonia-branded textile industry; known for its clothing that has always been related to hiking and outdoor mountaineering.
Being clear in 2022
«Our only shareholder now is the planet,” announced Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard in a letter addressed to his community and also shared publicly on September 15, 2022 through a press release. The metaphor used is representative of an important decision for the company, owned by the founder and his family until now and now sold to two nonprofit organizations committed to fighting climate change.
Certainly, acted out in this way it sounds crazy “cool” and would seem to go against every rule of the Market, therefore, to be a revolution in both thought and implementation.
A Business distruptor model?
Founded in 1973, Patagonia has a long history behind it and, as reported on the company website, it has now been nearly 50 years since the company started its “experiment in responsible business.” This commitment became increasingly evident in 2018, when the brand announced its new brand purpose, which is to “save our planet,” as Patagonia’s founder explained in the letter mentioned at the beginning.
In order to safeguard the brand’s philosophy of environmental protection, it had also been considered selling or listing the company completely on the stock exchange but, it was deemed unsuitable because, according to Yvon Chouinard, increasing profits would tend to become a priority at the expense of responsibility. As the founder stated in this regard, “Actually, we realized that there were no viable options. So we decided to create our own business model.”
In a nutshell what is this new economic model
Although Patagonia remains a for-profit company, ownership has been transferred to two nonprofit organizations Patagonia Purpose Trust and Holdfast Collective. To the former, created to protect the brand’s values, 100 percent of the voting shares were transferred, while its board of directors will still be elected and led by the Chouinard family.
Holdfast Collective will henceforth hold 100 percent of the non-voting shares. In this way, annually, the profits that will not be reinvested in the business (estimated to be about $100 million per year) will be handed over by Patagonia, in the form of dividends, to this organization and used for nature conservation and combating the environmental crisis. Again, the work done by Holdfast Collective will be overseen by the Chouinard family.
… Could it be followed by tourism companies or public administrations?
The challenger ball has been thrown on the field, now events must be awaited.
Certainly, the Public Administrations could take, in a sense, a reverse path and put one foot in the private sector to retain a public part as a fund for the Environment and Turism , but it would activate several mechanisms of safeguard , control and tourism promotion.
The relationship between Environment and Tourism is inescapable and should not, only, be interpreted as a model that is based on protection without gains that can fuel the model itself.
Now, Patagonia intends to call on all businesses to abandon the prevailing economic model and engage in Earth defense to “protect the true source of all wealth.”
Those who know this company know that it has been delivering what it promises for 30 years.
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