‘We are turning capitalism on its head by making the Earth our only shareholder’- Yvon Chouinard
To preserve its legacy and bolster its response to the climate issue, the Chouinard family significantly altered the business’s ownership structure.
Patagonia is announcing that the Chouinards are transferring entire ownership to two newly established organisations, some 50 years after first entrepreneurship, in an effort to strengthen the company’s commitment to its core principles and the battle against climate change.
The Patagonia Purpose Trust is working with two objectives in mind: to ensure that Chouinard’s original mission is never compromised and that the firm continues to serve as an example of how capitalism can benefit the environment.
The new ownership structure is a drastic move for Patagonia in some respects, but it also makes perfect sense as a logical progression in others. This firm has always operated according to its own rules.
“This is not woke capitalism. It’s the future of business if we want to build a better world for our children and all other creatures”, says the family. Organizations have obligations to their employees, clients, the environment, and, yes, investors. Advocates of shareholder capitalism mistakenly believe that objectives other than profit will mislead investors. In fact, by tearing up the social fabric of our society and depleting the planet we dwell on, we have financed brisk shareholder profits. The globe is actually on fire, as we are all aware.
In a stroke of capitalist mapping, the corporation is charting a new course as it gets ready to commemorate the 50th year of its own trip. It has once more reached the edge of the corporate map.
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