
Outdoor Apparel Company Pantagonia announced Monday it will donate a 100% of its Black Friday sales, estimated to be over $2 million to grassroots environmental groups.
Goods at the company’s 80 stores and on its website will still be paid for but Patagonia chief executive Rose Marcario has pledged to donate the entire sum spent on the day to charities in line with its ethically-correct environmental brand.
Marcario announced the move in a statement saying that the company wants to help its customers “show love to the planet.”
“These are small groups, often underfunded and under the radar, who work on the front lines,” noted Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario, in a post she wrote announcing the company’s plans. “The support we can give is more important now than ever.”
Marcario’s statement hinted strongly that the move is a deliberate response to the election of a president in Donald Trump who has publicly denied the existence of climate change.
The company shut all its American stores, along with its headquarters and distribution centers on Election Day, so that its customers and staff – it has 2,000 employees worldwide – could focus on voting.
“This we know: If we don’t act boldly, severe changes in climate, water and air pollution, extinction of species and erosion of topsoil are certain outcomes. The threats facing our planet affect people of every political stripe, of every demographic, in every part of the country. We all stand to benefit from a healthy environment—and our children and grandchildren do, too,” said Marcario.
With the latest effort Patagonia will also provide its consumers with information in its stores and on its website about how they can get involved with the environmental groups in their communities.
It referred to a “difficult and divisive time” and stressed that the threats facing the planet “affect people of every political stripe.”
Patagonia was founded more than 40 years ago by Canadian Yvon Chouinard, who still owns the company together with his wife Malinda.