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Comment by celestialcheese | Hacker News Reader

Here's the note from Yvon https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/

One of the most interesting parts of this is the choice to make Holdfast a C4. They really wanted to make this a political organization, and were willing to forgo a staggering amount of tax savings - in fact, $17m in tax donating away a $3b asset. Probably the least effective estate planning from a raw $ perspective in history.

Major props to the family for doing this - this is now the definition of "putting your money where your mouth is", and I hope this model is a success and serves as a template for others to follow.

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Thanks for sharing the actual letter. Contrary to what the New York Times report (OP) would have you believe, Yvon's note doesn't say anything about climate change. Rather, it emphasizes "the environmental crisis," "defending nature," "the health and vitality of the natural world," and the Earth’s finite resources.

There is so much more to environmental conservation than just "climate change," and Patagonia has done much more around e.g. removing dams, minimizing PFCs in their products, recycling and increasing longevity of materials, and other actions that protect air, land, forests, rivers and oceans, and which encourage sustainable energy production.

Dear NYT and fellow readers, please don't throw this diversely interested company into some politically expedient climate change bucket. Their view on the environment is so much more.

That's interesting, I wouldn't have made the distinction. I'm not even sure there is a distinction (climate change is by far the greatest threat to the environment). What are your personal views on climate change, if you don't mind me asking?

Not OP, but I think there are very important environmental impacts that are not related to climate change. Take, for example, plastic in the sea - clearly a big issue for the environment, but addressing climate change will not impact this at all.

Other examples include destruction of habitats, NO2 in the air, dumping waste in nature and rivers, lead that gets into nature etc.

I've found that 'climate change' activism leads with wealth redistribution, social justice, and even socialism in a general sense. Biodiversity activism, on the other hand, tends to organize around reducing anthropogenic sources of CO2/CH4, establishing wildlife corridors, protecting watersheds, and so forth.

Both are valid and there's obviously a lot of welcome, positive alignment.

How are sea microplastics and climate change not related? Both involve fossil fuel materials being left somewhere they shouldn't when we are "done" with them.

In one case the fossil fuels contribute to climate change, in the other case it doesn’t.

They are both under a broader banner of pollution.

And?

Let me say that again: why don't you think the plastics are changing the climate?

Because as long as you don't burn them, they don't release any gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Could you explain any mechanism that make plastics in nature contribute to the climate catastrophe?

Not OP, but was glad they piped up :)

My vague concern is that overly emphasizing "climate change" means all these brains are thinking on just one small bit of surface of this larger project. We talk a ton about carbon because it's the tangible thing that brownian motions equally through the atmosphere and we can undeniably quantify, but the whole ship leaks across a number of dimensions. We need eyes and minds on all the little edges of the larger wicked problem: both convincing and creating fellow humans that we can be happy and healthy without unconstrained growth. There's a lot of baggage to work through.

The sheer eighth grade math of it is that we can't be anything but cancer or conquerors (at whatever scale) unless we get that under control on this finite planet <3

> climate change is by far the greatest threat to the environment

The effects of climate change will be uneven across humanity, and many of the worst effects might be second-order (e.g. instability caused by mass migration).

There are other types of environmental change, like accumulation of so-called "forever chemicals", which have the potential to have a more direct effect on the entire human population, and potentially over a shorter time period than climate change. It's not clear to me that climate change is the greatest threat we face.

Quite literally references climate change in the third sentence of the letter?

> "As we began to witness the extent of global warming and ecological destruction, and our own contribution to it, Patagonia committed to using our company to change the way business was done."

I like how "global warming" became "climate change." My favorite trick of the mind.

I dislike "climate change" too, because it carries the idea that we can change it back. I think "global warming" was fine, but if i had to pick something, it would be "climate drift" i think.

I disagree. Climate always changes. Constantly. Warming is just one part of the climate change. Many other things change too so climate change is a lot broader term for this.

"Anthropogenic climate change at a rate that humans and/or natural systems can't cope with" just isn't as catchy.

Weather changes. It's when enough weather changes that the overall climate changes where we begin to have issues.

Too subjective. Objectively climate has always been changing and will always be changing. Earth has seen much warmer climate and much colder climate and everything in between since formation. Your definition of issues don’t really make sense unless it’s subjective because objectively climate change is just is, not good not bad, just fact and consequence of complicated system. Even in the past many centuries, if you look at history, plenty of empires fell because of climate change(floods, droughts, etc). We are accelerating the change but it would still be changing even if we didn’t exist.

Well, the problem is that we are accelerating so much that adaptation from living beings is not possible.

Not a small problem,you know...

Overall temperature increase is the part that is most directly caused by our activities, and which in turn causes all those other changes, so I think it's fair to emphasize that.

Weather changes. Climate is the accumulated average across years. It’s “yesterday it rained here” vs “we got an average of x litters of water per square meter during this month in the last ten years”. Climate changes, but by its own nature it should change really gradually.

The point is that weather is changing so much that even climate is changing quickly now. Or, in a car metaphor: not only our velocity is increasing, our acceleration is also increasing m.

I think a stronger word like “climate emergency” would have been more appropriate.

The point is that weather is changing so much that even climate is changing quickly now. Or, in a car metaphor: not only our velocity is increasing, our acceleration is also increasing.

I think a stronger word like “climate emergency” would have been more appropriate.

But 'drift' carries the idea that 2021 climate is already gone, and that we won't get it back anytime soon.

'change' doesn't carry this idea at all. Anyway, global warming was more descriptive, thus better to me.

I really like climate drift

I really like “the great extinction”

More punchy. More descriptive of actual events.

“Climate drift” sounds like the name of an AI bot, made specifically to create a narrative that underplays the seriousness and gravity of the extremely dangerous and deadly feedback loops that are appearing now in the global climate system.

Drift carry the idea that we cannot change it back.

I don't think it underplay anything. I understand that we must act. But with this name your arguments won't be heard.

The climate denialists of today are those believing that if it gets too much, we will have to do some efforts for a decade and boom, back to 1970 climate. I want to engage that belief, hence 'climate drift'

The implication of “great extinction” is that we’re seeing a mass extinction event which we aren’t. At least not on the level of the major ones usually discussed.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Frank Luntz was the republican PR pollster that advised the Bush administration to replace "global warming" with "climate change" in all White house documents and speeches.

The idea was to make it sound less severe, to please the Oil&Gas lobby. For the most part it worked as you now have environmentalist on the other side of the fence using it too.

I agree with the argument that climate change is maybe not accurate as some regions might cool as well. I would prefer "climate emergency" if I was in charge of the PR.

It was an important clarification which got hijacked. The clarification is that some local climates might not meaningfully warm, they might even cool, but will experience other drastic changes. Even as the global temperature rises.

It’s a trick because nuance is easily exploited by people craven enough to exploit it. But it’s an important distinction for people who don’t understand why they’re having colder or wetter winters in temperate climate regions (example picked out of my locality).

Good point. Mainstreaming "climate disruption" would be even better though.

Despite some of my issues with the company, they have a few really cool environmentally friendly programs. The "worn well" program is incredible, basically if you have a piece of patagonia clothing and return it through that program, they clean it up or recycle it and you get a free credit towards anything patagonia sells.

For kids clothes this is a boon, I would buy my daughter a patagonia jacket from the patagonia outlet at 40% off, she grows out if it and I trade it in for a new jacket and get $20-$30 off of the new jacket. Her old jacket gets cleaned and sold to some other kid who can use it(they have a worn well portal where you can buy used gear), great for peoples pocketbooks, great for the environment - win all around.

Yeah, I don't agree with 100% of their political positions (though, to be fair, it is rare that I agree with 100% of anyone's political positions, including my own), but they are really trying to change the way people consume their products. And, many of their products are truly built to last. I have two jackets (one insulated, one a fleece) that are 15+ years old and have been dragged through the dirt, mud, rain, and snow all over the U.S.

> it is rare that I agree with 100% of anyone's political positions, including my own

This is my favorite political comment of the year!

I hope you won't mind my stealing it when one of my friends is shocked that we disagree on some political position or another.

Ha! I was just about to comment saying the same thing! I like it a whole lot :)

Do you 100% agree with that statement? It can be seen as political.

> though, to be fair, it is rare that I agree with 100% of anyone's political positions, including my own

Finally something I can almost totally agree with!

Right now I'm wearing a pair of their twill jeans I've had for nearly 20 years now. There's a tiny bit of pilling in the knees you can only see close up. Otherwise they look brand new every time they come out of the wash.

A lot of their stuff isn't to my style, but I've had really solid luck with the stuff that is. I've got multiple pairs of long underwear and down vests and such from back when I snowboarded a lot, again, all of them held up really well.

Long time HN reader, never signed up, until today.

It's humbling and refreshing to see someone disagreeing and acknowledging that it doesn't mean that they're right and the other side is wrong, and that it's ok to like 99% of someone else's agenda (my interpretation) without starting an I'm better than you campaign.

More of us should follow that line of thought, love your comment man!

> get $20-$30 off of the new jacket

would you also get $20-30 off of a used jacket?

Yes "If you have an old Patagonia item that is just sitting around, we’ll give you credit towards your next purchase on a used or new garment." https://wornwear.patagonia.com/

Better question is could you sell your old jacked for more than $20-30?

The problem with this argument is that it requires a good deal more effort than dropping off a garment. I have to list it somewhere and deal with inquiries and postage. How often to garments get thrown out because people don't have the time or interest in going through this process.

Personally, I end up donating many items to avoid the need to deal with eBay/Gumtree (Australia/UK marketplace).

Levi's has the same kind of thing for secondhand and vintage denim jeans and jackets: https://www.secondhand.levi.com/

H&M will give you credit for bring clothing of any kind. AFAICT both are just a way to get you into the store so you'll buy more stuff

https://www2.hm.com/en_ca/sustainability-at-hm/our-work/clos...

What matters is what happens to the used clothes. Patagonia resells them to consumers.

So does H&M

> the boxes and sorts the contents into three categories:

> Rewear: Wearable clothes are marketed as secondhand clothing.

> Reuse: If the clothes or textiles are not suitable for rewear, they’re turned into other products, such as remake collections or cleaning cloths.

> Recycle: All other clothes and textiles are shredded into textile fibers and used to make, for example, insulation materials.

The "Rewear" category is reselling the clothing.

I'm not sure how much of H&M clothes are really collected after use, but at least they have invested in a company that works on recycling fibers from clothes. They own over 10% of it. Probably some of what they collect goes to this Renewcell company for recycling.

https://www.renewcell.com/en/

They’re being sued for misleading statements about their sustainability: https://www.thefashionlaw.com/hm-is-being-sued-over-misleadi...

Don’t fall for their narrative.

I happen to know someone who works in a H&M store. They throw out any returned items even if they haven't been worn once. It's cheaper than having to put the work into sorting them.

There is often a disconnect between management and lower levels. I suspect the store would probably get in trouble for this behaviour.

Not least because it opens the company up to fines for false advertising (e.g. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regularly polices companies operating in Australia, which H&M does)

Employees perform the behaviors you incentivize. H&M can have an official policy that disagrees, but if their employees are incentivized not to comply, then they won't, and that's H&M's fault.

See also: Wells Fargo; Amazon

Oh Agreed. A systems problem.

A former company that I worked for wanted their customers (Real Estate Agents) to fill out profiles. They wanted the account managers to encourage this behaviour so they tied the bonus/commission to having it filled out.

Needless to say, the customers had very little interest in filling out the profiles. I found all the account managers sitting around a table at a conference filling them out themselves instead of talking to the customers (as they should have been at the event).

A few even discovered they could fill the fields with '.' characters and game the system (they got caught and fired for crossing the line). The others just wasted valuable time they could have been selling products and got their bonuses.

Ah that's a good point.

Though on consideration, I would venture a guess that the purpose of each program might be as different as the governance of each company. Outcomes might be comparable, but I'd bet the arrival path and conversations were very divergent. Judging from this stark choice they've made in this post, the people at Patagonia are clearly thinking VERY differently than most boring and very profitable companies, and I presume that's not skin-deep.

And if so, maybe it's selling one short to glom them together in assessment, based mainly on outcomes instead of routes? I dunno, I could see someone defending either way of looking at it -- focussing on sameness because outcome's are the same, or differentness because paths to decisions differ :)

Yeah I had a jacket that had worn through, and sent it back to them for repair for free. Brilliant.

Used Patagonia gear for kids (if you can afford it) is incredible. You know they’ll be dry and comfortable, it wears remarkably well, and it has resale value. All of my kids have cycled through Patagonia garments and each garment was sold eventually, bringing the cost of ownership well below what we’d pay if we bought them worse gear new.

It’s unfortunate that price prevents people from wanting or being able to invest in quality clothing that can last. If something is well made it seems like it can outlast cheaper garments several times over, and the environmental cost is reduced dramatically. Most garments like this really do cost a lot though; my nano puff hoody was around $350 CAD, for example. You can get stuff that looks the same for $50-$100. If I hadn’t experienced how nice it is first hand, I’d likely assume the nano is a waste of money and go with something cheaper too. Then of course at times in my life I couldn’t spend that much if I wanted to.

We have a bit of a crisis regardless. The garment industry is like a massive conveyor belt into landfills.

I can confirm, we have many Patagonia piles which are 30 years old now and they look brand new, passed from dad to me.

Also some t shirts from the 90 are still looking good, which is kinda incredible.

Read it again, it does mention climate change. Reflexive ctrl-f won't work because it words it: "global warming." It's in the very first paragraph:

> As we began to witness the extent of global warming and ecological destruction, and our own contribution to it, Patagonia committed to using our company to change the way business was done.

The New York Times didn't slip this in to mislead everyone.

I think you are reading too much into it.

The letter doesn't say the words "climate change" but that's clearly what they are talking about. Instead, they do mention "global warming" which is part of what is referenced by "environmental crisis".

I don't think "global warming" is more or less politicized than the phrase "climate change". Maybe because "global warming" is slightly antiquated, it's less likely to produce knee jerk reactions?

I agree that the letter is trying its best to be politically inclusive, and I appreciate it.

From what I heard it was the polluters who pushed us from "global warming" to "climate change" as the second is less emotive and less likely to be linked to them by people (especially after they paid so much for people to obscure things).

I really like environmental causes around preserving natural wild places for future generations to enjoy and appreciate that patagonia (a brand that caters a lot to outdoorsy types) is backing this. Makes me want to support them.

Bro "global warming" is "climate change". You gotta read, no Cmd-F. Second sentence, my dude. Gotta read before you dunk, homie.

>Yvon's note doesn't say anything about climate change.

So this is the standard level of reading comprehension on HN these days?

LITERALLY the third sentence in the first paragraph.

>I never wanted to be a businessman. I started as a craftsman, making climbing gear for my friends and myself, then got into apparel. As we began to witness the extent of ***global warming***...

Personally, I don't own any items from Patagonia. As company so, it is model to strive for. A pitty tgat not more companies can resist the worst incentives in capitalism.

It says a lot about America that doing things the right way and paying a whopping 0.5% in tax is a "staggering amount of savings" and "least effective".

Imagine the things we could do if more companies cared about giving back to the public good that enabled them to become what they are rather than using legal trickery to ignore the intent of the law.

also that climate change is somehow "political"!

Fill in the blanks:

"We need to fight climate change. I voted for ____."

"I don't think climate change is caused by humans. I voted for ____."

If you could perform the above task easily, then yes it's political.

Sure, but I think what OP was saying is that this says a lot about the US. For example in Germany, denying man made climate change is a fringe position. We just fight about how to stop it and at what cost.

You mean by shutting down nuclear plans and calling natural gas "green"?

With enough media firepower, anything can be made political, regardless of the underlying reality.

Everything that happens or is done in public is political, and the more it affects the public the more political it is. C̶l̶i̶m̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ The climate emergency is a deeply political topic as it affects basically everyone.

I think "political" here referred to the fact that the way they set up the organisation allowed them to make political contributions, at a cost of having to pay $17m in tax more than they would've had to pay with a different setup.

I firmly believe that I know better than the government where I should put my money to give back to society and will be more efficient in doing it. I give a lot relative to my income and intend to continue doing so, and also intend to minimize my tax burden so I can support the causes I care about not the ones other people vote for.

Sure but you are a tiny minority. Most people are outright selfish when it comes to (not only) money, hence laws are required. More often than not they create an alternate reality where they justify their actions by whatever mental trick their subconsiousness deems necessary (ie I pay enough already, it wont matter anyway, I put the money into kids etc etc etc).

I do not believe the government is any better at deploying money to meet a social good.And I believe it is people's own right to use their money to support what they believe in. So I will continue to work to pay as absolutely low tax as possible so I can support causes I believe in and allow others to do the same.

501c3 organizations have to be careful about the language they use when commenting on any government policy, even if they stay out of elections. It’s just hard to be overtly opinionated about things as a c3. The Sierra Club found this out the hard way when fighting a dam across the Grand Canyon. They converted to a c4 as well back then (well, the IRS forced them to).

I think it’s fine because non profits even under C4 grow tax free with a tiny excise tax on investment income (1.39% on realized gains and dividends, I think?)

so for a company with profits being the primary asset, itll grow even quicker, since there are no income taxable shareholders

> Probably the least effective estate planning from a raw $ perspective in history.

For a very well planned change of ownership of an estate, see the UK royal family. The recent inheritance had zero death duties paid.

I think the 17m is only for the 2% of the voting shares the rest is political donation and thus taxfree

You get a tax deduction by applying a donation against other income.

If they are giving away everything, then there is nothing to offset the donation (except the $17B).

So it kind of makes sense?

If own a single asset worth $1B and donate it all, I have no tax write off because I have no money.

I think you mean $17M, not $17B.

They are not giving “everything” away presumably they have taken many millions of dollars out of the company over the years, enough to have built likely generational wealth outside of their Patagonia holding.

If own a single asset worth $1B and donate it all, I have no tax write off because I have no money

Write offs carry forward to future years - you still get the write off even if you do t apply it.

They don’t get a write off here because the organization (that they created for this) is a 501c4 non-profit. Donations to those are not considered tax deductible.

It's a bit sad to think that 0.5% tax is "staggering", and also to feel that it's important to not exclude government when making charitable donations.

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