Notebook

During the past week, media outlets were fled with the recent news on the founder of Patagonia –  Yvon Chouinard –  announcing that all the company’s profits will go into saving the planet and turning Earth into the company´s only shareholder. The world dazzled and enhance the gesture in setting a new example in environmental corporate leadership.

Chouinard’s family donated 2% of all stock and all decision-making authority to a trust, which will oversee the company’s mission and values. The other 98% of the company’s stock will go to a non-profit called the Holdfast Collective, which “will use every dollar received to fight the environmental crisis, protect nature and biodiversity, and support thriving communities, as quickly as possible”, according to the statement.

Let it to be said that the company is not new in this endeavours as Chouinard and Patagonia have long been groundbreakers in environmental activism and employee benefits. In its nearly 50 years in operation, the Ventura, California-based company has been known for extensive benefits for employees, including on-site nurseries and afternoons off on good surf days. In the 80s, the company began donating 1% of its sales to environmental groups, a program formalized in 2001 as the “1% for the Planet Scheme”. The program has resulted in $140m in donations for preservation and restoration of the natural environment, according to the company.

The company gesture might addresses a long discussion on corporate responsibility towards the environment and sustainability practices when most billionaires and big corporations only give a tiny fraction of their return to environmental related companies or corporations. The quick off of a new trend which was praised specially by a younger generation, might be a shift on how companies contribute to environmental efforts and community protection.