What if businesses got creative to unleash funding, political influence, and cultural clout to address our environmental challenges?
What if corporations were driven not by maximizing quarterly earnings and shareholder profits, but by being good citizens of planet Earth?
This episode of What If We Get It Right? is about corporations, consumerism, capitalism, and courage. The context, of course, is that corporations need to dramatically and rapidly reduce their environmental impacts. Instead, we have big tech companies abandoning their climate pledges to pursue AI, the Net Zero Banking Alliance disbanding, and a proliferation of both corporate greenwashing and greenhushing.
Not to mention a U.S. federal government that is dismantling climate regulations, slashing funding for solutions, and refusing to hold corporations accountable. So where does that leave us?
There are some companies truly trying to do better. I happen to be on the board of one of them – the outdoor company Patagonia. And it was actually because of the first podcast I hosted, How to Save a Planet, that the Chouinard family, who owned Patagonia, came across me and my work.
I joined the board of directors in 2021, as Patagonia was going through a major transition that resulted in the world having one less billionaire, the founder Yvon Chouinard, and a plan to give away basically all the company’s profits to environmental causes in perpetuity.
I thought you might like a peak behind the curtain, so I sat down with the CEO, Ryan Gellert, to dig into the values and practices that have shaped not just Patagonia, but set a high bar across sectors for everything from materials and manufacturing, to worker’s rights and activism, to philanthropy. Now, it’s not a perfect company, certainly, environmentally or otherwise, but it’s a model worth considerating.
Sometimes in this episode I ask questions I already know the answers to :) to get Ryan to lay it all out for you. And some things, about what happened before I joined the board, I’m hearing for the first time.
Let’s get into it.
Ryan’s vision for what getting it right looks like for a company that makes stuff:
I think the vision is that companies break the cycle of short-term thinking, break the cycle of short-term investing, and we eliminate this concept of externalities — in this sense that I’m imposing a cost on society, but I can get away with it, therefore I will.... There’s an old saying there’s no business to be done on a dead planet, and I think that’s what we’re headed towards if we don’t take this more seriously.
Also, note:
The most sustainable product is the product that already exists.
See: Patagonia’s Worn Wear, DIY repair guides, and Ironclad Guarantee.
Ryan’s CALL TO ACTION
Do not forget the influence and the power that you have as a customer, as an employee, and as a citizen.
To dive in even deeper, check out Patagonia’s first-ever Work in Progress impact report:
Notes:
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This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.
Special thanks to Dave Girtsman who engineered the recording for us at Patagonia HQ. This episode was produced and edited by Remoy Philip and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.
If you’re new here, peruse the back catalog. A few dozen hours of sweet podcast conversations with incredible guests await you. ✨
p.s. Mom, sorry I lost the Patagonia jacket you bought me in middle school for my first backpacking trip. (Purple with red zippers, I miss it.) I swear I’m more responsible now!
