At 87 years old, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard says he is working harder than an 87-year-old should, but he feels he has no choice. In the company's recently released Work in Progress Report, Chouinard explained that the planet is in bad shape, and he cannot rest while environmental threats intensify. The report, which details Patagonia's ongoing efforts to save the planet, serves as both a progress update and a candid assessment of the challenges ahead.
Patagonia's Unconventional Mission
Patagonia has long been known for its commitment to environmentalism, a mission that became even more pronounced in 2022 when Chouinard gave away the company. The ownership transfer created the Patagonia Purpose Trust, which now controls the company with the sole objective of maximizing efforts to save the planet, rather than maximizing shareholder value. This structure ensures that the company's core values will remain intact beyond the founder's lifetime and provides a definitive way to distribute more money toward environmental preservation. As Patagonia famously claims, Earth is now its only shareholder.
The Work in Progress Report gets its name from the notion that Patagonia sees itself as an experiment in doing business differently, and that experiment is a work in progress. Over the past year, the company decided to include narrative storytelling for context, along with data and metrics, to provide a more holistic view of its efforts.
Chouinard's Personal Commitment
Chouinard, a billionaire before he began giving his wealth away, emphasized that threats to planetary health are increasing. The climate and nature crisis is worsening, and the truth is being obscured in a sea of misinformation. He noted that even after decades of activism and corporate reform, what is clear is that for all the work Patagonia has done on its products and in its supply chain, and all the money it has given away to environmental nonprofits, it is still not enough. Chouinard has returned to his roots in design and product quality, but feels an even deeper responsibility to help the company succeed and provide a counter to what he calls the prevailing extractive model of capitalism.
If enough companies join together and decide the planet takes precedence over profit, Chouinard added, they can change the world. They could change capitalism for good. They might even save the planet. However, as the report makes clear, convincing other companies to join in this quest is a work in progress.
CEO Ryan Gellert's Candid Assessment
Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert offered a note of restraint in the report. He said the last thing they wanted this progress report to be was page after page of self-congratulation. He acknowledged the difficulty of this mission, describing the process as sometimes being messy and sometimes painful, but ultimately resulting in progress. He also offered a serious warning: if we don't clean up our mess, we'll be history. Gellert is philosophical, almost apologetic about the limited progress in the report. He wrote that Patagonia is a paradox. Its charter mandates it follow social and environmentally responsible practices, yet every product it makes takes irreplaceable resources from the planet. Its existence seems counter to its purpose, and that tension is not lost on the company.
The Numbers Behind the Narrative
When Chouinard gave the company away in 2022, the ownership transfer solved how Patagonia's core values would remain intact beyond the founder's lifetime and unlocked a definitive way to distribute more money toward environmental preservation. The Holdfast Collective, funded by Patagonia's profits, has committed more than $142 million toward planet-healing projects, including protection of millions of acres of land. Patagonia also detailed extensive ongoing work to manage its impacts, including eliminating forever chemicals (PFAS) from all new products starting in Spring 2025, and pursuing living wages in its supply chain.
The bulk of their emissions—nearly 99%—comes from the supply chain, making large-scale decarbonization expensive and difficult to achieve alone. There are some notable achievements from the past year. Patagonia reached 98% renewable electricity for its global owned or operated offices and facilities and got over 95% of its products made in Fair Trade Certified factories. As of 2024, 39% of factories are paying a living wage, and an additional 29% are paying wages that are 80% of living wages or more.
Environmental Achievements and Challenges
The report reveals a civic-minded company grappling with internal tension between holding true to its purpose and facing harsh economic realities, including trade wars and assaults on nature. Matt Dwyer, VP of Product Footprint, conjured up a metaphor that conveyed maybe why Patagonia sees things as such a work in progress: the more layers of the onion you peel, the more you cry. This sentiment captures the difficulty of corporate environmentalism, where every solution uncovers new problems.
Patagonia's work on eliminating PFAS is a prime example. The company has committed to removing these persistent chemicals from all new products by Spring 2025, a move that requires significant changes in manufacturing processes and material sourcing. Similarly, the pursuit of living wages in its supply chain involves complex negotiations with factories across multiple countries, many of which face their own economic pressures.
The Road Ahead
Despite the challenges, both Chouinard and Gellert remain committed to the mission. Chouinard noted that he has been working harder than an 87-year-old should, but he feels he has no choice because the planet is in bad shape. He called on other companies to join Patagonia in prioritizing the planet over profit, arguing that if enough businesses change, capitalism itself could be transformed. Gellert echoed this sentiment, acknowledging that while Patagonia's efforts are still not enough, the company is making progress and learning from its mistakes. The Work in Progress Report serves as a testament to that journey, offering transparency and accountability in a corporate world often characterized by greenwashing and empty promises.
As the climate crisis worsens and misinformation obscures the truth, Patagonia remains one of the few companies willing to admit that its own existence is a paradox. Every product it makes takes irreplaceable resources from the planet, yet it continues to push for environmental reform. This tension, as Gellert put it, is not lost on the company. It is a work in progress, and progress is not always linear. But for Chouinard, there is no alternative. The planet is in bad shape, and he will keep working until it is not.
Source: MSN News