No More Rich White Men: Mother Nature, Chairwoman and CEO of Patagonia

Know this face: This week, the visage of the philanthropist and billionaire businessman, Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia has been everywhere. Chouinard announced on Wednesday that he would be giving his $3 billion companyaway in the interest of fighting climate change. Mr. Chouinard and his wife transferred their complete private ownership to a uniquely designed trust, which will maintain the company’s independence and ensure that $100 million per year of its profits are used to fight climate change.

Within a world of millionaires, such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the move to act as an ethical businessman appeared as somewhat of a shock to many, yet for Chouinard, the action simply was an example of remaining true to one’s brand and putting his money where his mouth is.

Yvon Chouinard was an avid rock climber, whose love for the sport led him to found Patagonia in 1973, originally as a rock-climbing outlet store. The incredibly smart branding of the brand, as well as a steady expansion into other materials-built Patagonia a classic, reliable and profitable outdoor fashion brand. A continued commitment to nature, and its ideals Patagonia has consistently been rewarded for its mission’s alignment with its nature as a business.

In 2011, Patagonia produced a massive advertisementthat aired in the New York Times, stating Don’t Buy This Jacket”, and featuring a photograph of one of their products. Instead of detailing more information, the brand introduced the Common Threads Initiative, which asked consumers to reduce, repair and reuse their materials as much as possible. Originally, this initiative was a partnership with its customers to consume less, focusing on the 4 R’s: reduced consumption, repair, resale via eBay and recycling.

“Don’t Buy This Jacket”, and featuring a photograph of one of their products. Instead of detailing more information, the brand introduced the Common Threads Initiative, which asked consumers to reduce, repair and reuse their materials as much as possible. Originally, this initiative was a partnership with its customers to consume less, focusing on the 4 R’s: reduced consumption, repair, resale via eBay and recycling. Along a similar thread, each year around Black Friday, Patagonia has asked people only buy what they need. Needless to say, there has been “almost in direct correlation, its sales have kept rising, with this year expected to be the most profitable in the Californian firm’s 45-year history, with predicted sales of $750m (£495m).”

These direct numeral results only speak for the public reward of acting transparently and truthfully to one’s advertised mission. The effort to demonstrate what the brand should stand for is only rewarded. In Patagonia’s case, it seems as though the long-standing history of such moves make them believable, and thus trustworthy. Similar tactics by outdoor companies have had the same effect. In 2015, REI launched its Opt Outside campaign, which encouraged shoppers to forgo Black Friday shopping with the interest of spending the free holiday outside in nature, essentially promoting exactly what REI sells supplies for: being outdoorsy. While there was some pushback questioning the altruism of this move, the intent was clear: these outdoor brands have truly learned a valuable lesson of putting their brand ideals first, and their profits second, only to benefit more greatly as a result. Patagonia holds sustainability within its business model as well. “Patagonia guarantees its clothes for life, and offers repairs "at a reasonable charge" for normal wear and tear - it estimates it'll do 40,000 individual repairs this year.” In the interest of sustainability, Patagonia also reverses several interests of the fast fashion model, which remains highly capitalist in nature. Patagonia looks to ensure the durability of its gear and the quality, which both go against the interests of making more money in sales of quantity. Yet, the consumers who continue to be loyally returning their items for repairs are rooted back in the original premise of Patagonia as a gear company. Maintaining that gear is simply a part of the job, according to Patagonia. Social change for many companies simply relies on the donation of profits within their economic models. For Patagonia, donations of 1% of its profits to causes combatting climate change exhibits a very simple element of their economic program. The cost of protecting the very nature with which they produce goods for seems to be an unquestionable cause. Yet, the move only furthers the initiatives of being honest. Openly protecting nature without asking for support or praise for doing so only contributes the frenzy of why buyers love this brand. Unquestionably, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two children have transferred their ownership as a family in the interests of doing what is right. The brand trust design looks to preserve the independence of Patagonia as a brand, while ensuring that all of its profits—around $100 million annually—are used to combat climate change and maintain undeveloped lands globally. The aptly named Patagonia Purpose Trust gained two percent of overall shares in August, essentially gaining the company’s voting stock, while the rest of it (the other 98%), known as its common shares were established into a nonprofit organization called the Holdfast Collective, which now receives all profits. As a 501(c)(4), the company can now make unlimited political contributions, while receiving no family tax benefits for such donations. This seemingly genuine move has received some pushback, as to be expected, among certain critics and conservatives who criticize the movement arguing that donating some percentages of their money or business to charity continue to reap the benefits as they will earn more by having done so. Citing their advertisements, such as the “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad, there is a lingering belief that such moves are PR stunts, which aim to benefit the companies rather than enjoy a better future along with the publics that they support. To some extent, this opinion is valid: making good public relations moves benefit the companies as well as the public. People vote with their dollars. On the other hand, should companies not be rewarded for doing the right thing? Serving integrity to serve purpose can only be rewarded by publics making the choices to support them within a capitalistic situation, where making money is the main goal. Similar contentious decisions have also raised questions regarding their validity and motivation. For example, last year Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, a credit card processing company, made the controversial move to cut his personal salary by at least $70,000 per year. This move came at his personal realization of the unlivable wages and economic pressures that his employees were facing outside of work. In the interest of increasing productivity, and hoping that fewer worries would increase productivity, as well as being the right thing to do, Price has described his company size as tripled, and he still pays the $70,000 salary per year. This mindset completely defies a troubling economic model within capitalist societies of how much CEOs make annually. An Economic Policy Institute Report from August 10, 2021 reported that “CEOs were paid 351 times as much as a typical worker in 2020”. These rates only become more and more alarming considering that CEO pay has only continued to increase exponentially, having “skyrocketed 1,322% since 1978”. The incredible wealth disparity only raises more questions at the growing divide between CEOs like Chouinard and leaders of other top brands, such as Elon Musk, who’s reported individual compensation is nearly 40,000 times more than the average Tesla worker. According to People’s World, “the average worker at Musk’s car company, Tesla, earned $56,163 last year—not very much in the high-cost San Francisco Bay Area where Tesla is located. Musk earned 40,668 times as much.” This incredible number appears shocking indeed. Yet, the equity necessary to prevent the imbalance shown in such companies is indicative of greater market trends. “CEO-to-worker pay ratio data is important. A higher ratio could be a sign that companies suffer from a winner-take-all philosophy where executives reap the lion’s share of compensation,” the AFL-CIO said. “A lower ratio could indicate which companies were dedicated to creating high-wage jobs and investing in their employees for the company’s long-term health.” The ALF-CIO stands for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, which is a leading, voluntary federation of 58 national and international labor unions representing 12.5 million working men and women. So, does it matter what entrepreneurs make? In an interview, Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, aka “Mr. Wonderful”, was asked how rich is too rich? Essentially, he attempted to answer the question of whether or not Elon Musk was too wealthy by today’s standards. O’Leary responded saying, “You think about what that man's accomplished and how he's changed everybody's lives — space, what he's done with electric cars, making the economy greener. Should we punish him for that? Is he a bad guy?", continuing that “When he dies we're taking it all back anyway. Now if you'd like to accelerate that, should we arrest him, shoot him, and take all the money now?" Both questions of Elon Musk and Yvon Chouinard actions represent fundamental questions which America and the world have been wrestling with regarding social equity. While it appears shocking when considering the ratios of wages from top to bottom within some of these mega corporations, businessmen such as Kevin O’Leary raise points that are indicative of the leadership that holds much of the social order in America and other countries, leaving us to beg the question of what the right answer is. In my opinion, social imbalances truly come down to the divide. How great of a divide is there between the CEO and the lowest paid worker. Is it 40,000 times the salary of the lowest paid worker or ten times? Some say that it is up to people to decide through their dollar votes, but in order for a single man to be worth 273.2 billion USD, while others are only worth fractions of fractional percentages of that amount, something seems off. Business Insider described that the average family has a $748,000 net worth, while the median net worth in America is only $121,700. The only way for these numbers to balance out is for hundreds of thousands of people to be so far above that threshold, which is much more sensitive to societal outliers, which are massively below the threshold of fifty thousand or even a hundred-thousand-dollar salaries. What do you think? In a world in which CEO’s have such a disparity, should we be holding our highest and wealthiest to a higher standard of charity and honesty regarding their salaries, or did they earn them through an absence of ‘charity PR’ moves? Or, is the problem economic and having nothing to actually do with the presence of public relations in the first place, which only serves to make the news producers scapegoats for a larger problem?