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Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is giving away the company by transferring it to a trust that is meant to ensure its profits go towards combatting the climate crisis.
Chouinard, the rock climber-turned-billionaire, announced the move in a statement on Wednesday.
“Instead of ‘going public,’ you could say we’re ‘going purpose.’ Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth,” he wrote.
Chouinard, 83, said that he opted for the trust instead of selling the company to an owner that could potentially compromise Patagonia’s values or going public and leaving the company beholden to shareholders first.
Instead, ownership of the company, valued at around $3 billion, is being transferred to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, a set of trust and nonprofits.
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