Patagonia Founder Just Donated the Entire Company, Worth $3 Billion, to Fight Climate Change
By Lora Kolodny
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, his spouse and two adult children are giving away their ownership in the apparel maker he started some 50 years ago, dedicating all profits from the company to projects and organizations that will protect wild land and biodiversity and fight the climate crisis.
The company is worth about $3 billion, according to the New York Times.
In a letter about the decision, published on the Patagonia website on Wednesday, Choiunard wrote of “reimagining capitalism,” and said:
The privately held company’s stock will now be owned by a climate-focused trust and group of nonprofit organizations, called the Patagonia Purpose Trust and the Holdfast Collective respectively, the company said in a statement, noting “every dollar that is not reinvested back into Patagonia will be distributed as dividends to protect the planet.”
Source: CNBC (link opens in a new window)
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