For those of us who try to spend our dollars on more environmentally-friendly gear, there is an uncomfortable truth that we don’t like admitting: Sometimes, these products don’t perform as well as their planet-killing counterparts. Now, that’s not always the case, but too often we’re faced with a choice between performance and sustainability, and unfortunately, that has long been the case for wetsuits. As a surfer, I’m happy to report that the days of compromise are finally over. Patagonia’s new and improved Regulator wetsuit successfully blends performance and sustainability.

Patagonia, founded by California surfer and environmental activist Yvon Chouinard, has long sought to make wetsuits more eco-friendly by shirking traditional neoprene (traditionally derived from crude oil or limestone) in favor of more sustainable materials. Since 2012, the brand has been predominantly using Yulex, a brand name of natural rubber derived from the sap of sustainably-grown rubber trees, in its Regulator wetsuits.

While Yulex sounded great in theory, the performance has historically left much to be desired. I had a Regulator wetsuit from Patagonia’s previous generation, and it was noticeably stiffer than my traditional neoprene wetsuit. Every paddle stroke I took felt like I was pulling against a resistance band (albeit a light one). It also leaked at the seams in my lower legs, was tougher to get on and off, heavier, and dried slower, too.

The new version of Patagonia’s Regulator wetsuits solved effectively all of those problems. The company spent four years developing and testing the new suits (twice as long as its usual release schedule due to COVID-19 related slowdowns), and that extra time really paid off.

Patagonia Yulex Regulator Wetsuit

Available models: Lite (2 mm) to R5 (6.5 mm/5 mm), in front and back-zip options
Materials: 85% Yulex natural rubber plus recycled fabrics for jersey
Weight: 2.5 lbs (R1); 3.5 lbs for R3
Size range: Men’s S – XXL; Women’s 4-12

Pros and Cons:
⊕ Very flexible, warm, and comfortable
⊕ Improved seams don’t leak and are easily repaired
⊕ Dries quickly
⊕ One of the most eco-friendly wetsuits on the market
⊗ Issues with the zipper engaging
⊗ Issues with flushing and chafe around the neck
⊗ Limited range of sizes for women

When you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. This supports our mission to get more people active and outside.ÌęLearn more.

While Patagonia’s Regulator suits aren’t made entirely with natural rubber—no wetsuit today is—they do incorporate a new mix of 85 percent natural rubber, plus 15 percent of a processed synthetic rubber compound which gives the resulting foam enough stretch, strength, and UV-resistance to withstand the rigors of life as a wetsuit. Patagonia claims the newest version of these suits are 20-percent stretchier than the last. This is partially due to improvements in the foam rubber manufacturing process, and partially because the liners in the new suits have changed from nylon to polyester, with a slightly increased amount of Spandex, too.

I compared the new R1 (what Patagonia calls its 3mm/2.5mm line) to the last version by grabbing the sleeves in the same place and pulling each to the same length. While not perfectly scientific, I would estimate that the new suits did indeed require roughly 20-percent less energy to stretch the same distance, and that puts them right on par with my traditional neoprene suits. Not only does that reduce fatigue while paddling, but it makes getting it on and off easier, too.

Patagonia also redesigned the seams to address the leaking issues in the previous model, moving them slightly from high-wear areas and adding more curves to them so there’s less stress on them when they’re stretched. This simple change has made the new version one of the least leaky wetsuits I’ve ever tested.

When seams do have to be repaired, the job is much easier now. Patagonia removed the external liquid seal in the new Regulator, which had a tendency to crack and wasn’t fully repairable, leaving the company to replace defective wetsuits more often. According to Patagonia, the number of repairs is down a whopping 70-percent year to date.

These are all massive improvements, but the new Regulator still doesn’t get perfect marks across the board. For starters, there’s the zipper. I got the chest-zip version of the suit in both R1 and R3 thicknesses, and for both it was really tough to get the zipper to initially engage properly. This is quite annoying when your hands are cold and the waves are firing. I also found that the neck chafed me a bit more than wetsuits normally do (which made me wonder if it was too tight), yet it was also slightly more prone to flushing at the neck (which made me wonder if it’s too loose). It’s possible that that’s just the way my specific neck fits with the wetsuit, and the chafing didn’t happen every session, but it’s something to note.

While the stretch is immensely improved from the last version, it still isn’t quite on the same level as the super-high-end performance suits out there. At least the ones built with flexibility as the main feature, such as line. That said, for everybody but pros, it is more than flexible enough.

Then there’s the price: These are still some of the most expensive suits on the market. The R1 Regulator (3mm/2.5mm) comes in at $479, while the R3 Regulator (4.5mm/3.5mm) starts at $539. That’s roughly comparable to the high-end offerings from other surf brands ( line comes in at $520 and $540 for comparable thicknesses), but those companies typically have more affordable entry-level suits for people who are just starting out or are on a tighter budget (often under $200), and Patagonia only has the one line.

Also, strangely, these suits are available in ten different sizes for men, but only five different sizes for women. That’s despite women generally having more variation in terms of body-type than men. So if women don’t happen to fit one of those five then they’ll have to look at other brands, which is a shame.

All that said, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the newest Regulator suits to fellow surfers. I spent most of the winter and spring surfing in the R3 then the R1 as it got warmer, logging over 40 days up and down the California coast in water temperatures ranging from 49 to 64 degrees F, and both have lived up to their claimed temperature ratings, performed well, and held up admirably. They’re very comfortable, don’t wear me out like the last version did, and they dry faster, too.

So yes, these wetsuits still cost a premium, but the performance finally lives up to the price, and they’re easier on the planet, too.

The post Patagonia Finally Made a Natural Rubber Wetsuit That Works appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Last week I spent six hours skiing in the Vermont rain, and it actually didn’t suck–largely because I was swaddled in invisible toxic chemicals, known as PFAS or “forever chemicals.” I’m speaking of the key ingredient found on and in nearly every piece of outerwear with any kind of water repellency: the chemicals that keep us dry through any weather.

But PFAS are not just in our Gore-Tex shells. They’re in countless consumer products, providing heat, oil, stain, and grease resistance. These chemicals are hugely effective–and they also pose serious human health concerns. So much so thatÌęa flood of new bans are coming across the country in a wide range of categories.

In 2024, , says , a national alliance of environmental health organizations and coalitions. Many are already in effect for categories like food packaging, carpets, and ski wax, which have been outlined by state in the chart below.ÌęThese looming Ìębans have sent industries around the world scrambling to find alternative solutions. It also means that we will soon have to adjust our expectations on how we need to care for things like rain jackets, if we want them to perform, says sustainability consultant Ammi Borenstein, founder of , an agency specializing in sustainability strategy and management.

What Are Forever Chemicals?

PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. It’s a mouthful, which is why PFAS are colloquially called “forever chemicals.” The nickname refers to the fact that these tenacious chemicals survive essentially forever. They won’t break downÌęin the environment for a thousand years or more, which is precisely why they’re so effective at what they do: at creatingÌęa leak-proof barrier against all things liquidy.

PFAS, a family of more than 13,000 unique chemicals, were invented in the 1930s by DuPont de Nemours, Inc., as the companyÌęwas working to develop a non-stick frying pan. The world soon discovered the magic of these forever chemicals. Their Herculean bonding power means that they can render humble fabrics impenetrable to weather. They prevent red wine from staining your sofa and puppy poop from ruining your carpet. They keep grease from seeping through paper plates and take-out containers. They make mascara waterproof and are found in things like butter wrappers, lotions and sunscreens, (), and menstrual products. PFAS areÌęon your , and have been found in both tap and well water. A estimates that an alarming 45 percent of our country’s tap water contains PFAS.

Forever chemicals are basically everywhere and many Americans on a daily basis.ÌęSo it should come as no surprise that, according to compiled by The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the damn things are also floating inside the veins of every one of us.

So, just how freaked out should we be?

Why Are Forever Chemicals Dangerous?

Studies have linked PFAS exposure to a host of serious health problems: aÌę published in ±đ”țŸ±ŽÇČѱđ»ćŸ±łŠŸ±ČÔ±đÌęfound associations between PFAS exposure and thyroid cancer, and studies have linked exposure to kidney cancer as well.

Two of the most notorious forever chemicalsÌęare PFOA and PFOS, which have historically been used in nonstick cookware, firefighting foam, and many waterproof textiles. Both have been and were phased out of manufacturing in the U.S. in the mid 2000s. But thousands of other PFAS are still in production, and we are only now starting to understand where they show up. Which, at the risk of being redundant, is everywhere.

PFAS exposure from everyday items varies significantly. “If we’re talking about eating food off paper plates that contain PFAS, for instance, your exposure risks are pretty high because PFAS can absorb into food from plates,” says Borenstein, who points to a 2022 published on Science Direct.

But what about wearing a jacket?

Dr. Stuart Harrad, professor of environmental chemistry at University of Birmingham in the U.K., studies PFAS exposure through skin. In aÌęÌę(Environmental Research) he and his collaborators found that “PFAS can indeed transfer from environmental media (like indoor dust) into skin fluids (like sweat and oils) and become available for absorption through the skin into the bloodstream.”

“I would be concerned about the potential dermal exposure if PFAS in clothing comes in direct contact with the skin,” he told me. “However, as we don’t know what PFAS are present in such clothing, we cannot say with any certainty what the health effects might be and whether these might occur at the dermal exposure levels that might arise from wearing such clothing.”

In other words, PFAS in your yoga pants or long johns—or any fabric that directly touches your skin—could absorb directly into your bloodstream. But Harrad sees less of an exposure risk with clothing that is not next-to-skin, like jackets. He says that because of the unknowns, as well as the environmental implications of creating waste, he is “loathe to advise people to throw away existing wearable items” but contends that PFAS use in “any new products should be prohibited.”

We do know, however, that forever chemicals have profound impacts on the people who work in and live near the factories that make and handle them in their raw, unfinished state. Take, for instance the community of Parkersburg, West Virginia, where the DuPont factory (now called Chemours) first created PFOA and remains one of the area’s largest employers.

In the C8 Project, one of the , with nearly 70,000 participants in the area surrounding the plant, researchers found that PFOA was associated with six diseases: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia, and ulcerative colitis. While the chemical companies make obscene amounts of money, factory workers throughout the supply chain touch and inhale PFAS every day and thousands of families living downstream from the facilities drink contaminated water and breathe poisonous air.

After a decades-long quest for justice (chronicled in the excellent 2019 film ), attorney Robert Bilott won a $670 million settlement against DuPont for more than 3,500 personal injury cases.

Widespread PFAS Bans Are Coming Soon

While PFAS are not yet regulated at a federal level, state lawmakers across the country have put them in their crosshairs. “States are transforming the marketplace by adopting policies that mandate the phase out of dangerousÌę forever chemicals in products,” says Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States.

Starting in 2025, California will forbid the sale of most textiles with PFAS; New York will restrict them in apparel; and Colorado will ban them in upholstered furniture and ski wax. Similar laws are pending or approved in many other states.

Outdoor Brands at the Forefront of the PFAS-Free Movement

Much of the outdoor industry has been seeking safe alternatives to PFAS for years, as we reported on back in 2015, but it’s been a long process. Early iterations of PFAS-free outerwear were plagued by lackluster performance. But the brands who stayed the course have now landed on new chemistries that they claim perform well, such as footwear maker, KEEN, which has been PFAS-free since 2018. “PFAS are for recreating outside,” contends Kirsten Blackburn, director of KEEN Effect, the company’s sustainability and impact team.

But there is a caveat: everyone agrees that PFAS-free outdoor gear will require more regular care and maintenance to keep it performing at its best.

“With diligent aftercare like washing and re-treating, these alternatives do not compromise on performance,” says Corey Simpson, Patagonia’s communications manager. Patagonia, which started tackling the complex PFAS problem in 2006, has already eliminated PFAS from its fabrics, laminates, and coatings, and by 2025 all apparel (including zippers, buttons, patches, and threads) will be completely PFAS-free. Ìę“During our research and development of these alternatives we found that the cleaner these fabrics are, the better the PFAS-freeÌęalternatives perform. So, easy-peasy, just wash and dry your gear more frequently.”Ìę

FjĂ€llrĂ€ven did away with PFAS in all its textiles back in 2015. “The important question consumers need to ask, is what level of water repellency does one need?” says Kaytlin Moeller, regional sustainability director at Fenix Outdoor, parent company to FjĂ€llrĂ€ven. “We know that DWR with PFAS provides better waterproofing on gear than DWR made without PFAS, but is waterproof really necessary for the intended use? Actions like proper garment care, following washing guidelines, and using alternative waterproofing, like waxing when the fabric allows, can provide the necessary level of water repellency without introducing hazardous chemicals into the environment.”

Care and Maintenance of PFAS-Free Outdoor Gear

For those of us who have come to expect our rain gear to keep us dry year after year with no maintenance, this new PFAS-free reality might be a hard pill to swallow. But Hannah North, manager of , a Bend, Oregon retailer specializing in repairing and consigning outdoor gear, says that the only place you’ll feel the difference is in the laundry room. PFAS-free outerwear will require more hands-on care, she says, but if treated properly, most people won’t notice a performance difference.

“Most people don’t wash their outerwear enough, period,” says North. “And with these new PFAS-free chemistries, it will become even more important. We tell customers to wash their outerwear, regardless of whether it has PFAS or not, after every three to five significant uses and to every three to five washes.” (A “significant use” is roughly a full day of use outdoors.) It’s an easy, at-home process.

“We recommend products, which are water-based, PFAS-free, and very effective for re-waterproofing,”Ìęsays North. “Waterproof clothing should never be washed with normal detergent, which will leave a residue on the fabric that hinders water repellency.”

How to Avoid Forever Chemicals in Everyday Life

While it’s almost impossible to avoid PFAS altogether, there are some concrete steps you can take to minimize your exposure to them.

1. Be skeptical when you see “PFOA-free” on something like a nonstick pan. It probably means that they just use a different kind of PFAS. Remember that PFAS is a massive family of chemicals. PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid) is just one specific chemical in this family. Instead look for “PFAS-free” or “certified nontoxic.”
2. Ditch old Teflon cookware. Opt for ceramic instead.
3. Avoid fast food. The packaging wrapping that Big Mac is full of PFAS rubbing up against—and . Same with microwave popcorn and paper plates. When you do get takeout, transfer it out of the container as soon as possible because heat and time increase the likelihood of food absorption.
4. Store leftovers in glass containers, .
5. Avoid bottled water which and nanoplastics. Opt for filtered tap water instead.
6. Check your dental floss. This by Mamavation, a consumer health and wellness watchdog website, found that floss products have the “highest levels of organic fluorine we have ever seen in any consumer study.” (Organic fluorine is a chemical marker for the PFAS family of chemicals.) In the lab tests, 33 percent of the tested flosses (ranging from slippery filament and waxed versions to silk and bamboo ones) came back positive for the PFAS marker.

Most importantly, take heart. The omnipresence of PFAS can make the problem feel overwhelming.ÌęBut researchersÌęare learning more each day, the media is investigating, big brands across industries are shifting away from forever chemicals, and governments are starting to act.

“A few years ago we were looking at a massive, never-ending flow of these chemicals,” Borenstein says. “Now outdoor brands, companies all over the world, and importantly, lawmakers have woken up to their harmful effects. The widespread bans will start to turn off the tap. Then we’ll need to look at mitigation of the PFAS that already exist and reducing the toxic load on our bodies and in our environment.”

In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just recently around PFAS. It is investing in new research, and now requires companies to disclose the presence of certain chemicals in products. It is also developing new methods to measure PFAS in the environment and policies to hold polluters accountable.Ìę“, increased engagement from the EPA, increased consumer awareness, effective PFAS free advocates—all of these things suggest we could see national legislation banning PFAS in the near future,” says Blackburn.

To that, I say: Bring it on.

Doing right by the planet can make you happier, healthier, and—yes—wealthier. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű’s head of sustainability, Kristin Hostetter, explores small lifestyle tweaks that can make a big impact. Write to her at climateneutral-ish@outsideinc.com.

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You say yes, of course. But what about those other wild opportunities that you’re not so sure about? In this episode, we talk to athletes and adventurers about how accepting an invitation led them to life-changing experiences. Jimmy Chin was an unknown dirtbag climber when Chouinard welcomed him into his California home and then took him surfing at a legendary break. Conrad Anker was an up-and-coming alpinist when he got a chance to represent the U.S. in a competition in Kyrgyzstan. Timmy O’Neill was an emerging mountain athlete when he was asked to join an expedition that would conduct cataract surgeries in a remote area of Ethiopia. What they and our other guests all agree on: they wouldn’t be who they are today if they hadn’t dared to go for it.

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In the early 1990s, Kristine McDivitt, then the CEO of Patagonia, was at a cafĂ© in El Calafate, Argentina, when a man named Doug Tompkins sat down next to her. “Hey, kid, how ya doing?” he asked. Doug was the best friend and climbing buddy of her boss, Yvon Chouinard, and he was known as a brilliant, arrogant bon vivant. In 1964, Doug had cofounded the North Face with his first wife, Susie Tompkins Buell. Seven years later, the two started another clothing company, Esprit. After cashing out, he moved to Chile to live alone in a small cabin.

Kristine, a free-spirited California girl who had worked her way up the ladder at Patagonia after an entry-level, two-dollar-an-hour “assistant packing” job in her teens, knew Doug’s reputation. So when he tried to convince her to stay in South America with him, she demurred. (She also happened to be engaged to another man at the time.) But he was persistent. Months later, a five-day visit to Chile to see the farm Doug had purchased at the edge of a fjord turned into five weeks. Finally, Kristine returned to the States, “blew up her personal life,” and never looked back—by 1993 she had quit her job, married Doug, and moved into his cabin.

For the next two decades, the pair lived between remote homes in Chile and Argentina, only occasionally returning to California. They had a grand plan: buy and protect as much land threatened by logging and overgrazing as possible. Eventually, through a series of nonprofits run by the Tompkinses, the couple purchased hundreds of thousands of acres from ranchers and absentee landowners. Their fairy-tale life ended in tragedy in 2015, when Doug died in a kayaking accident in Chile at 72. Wracked with grief, Kristine was left alone at the helm of Tompkins Conservation, which was on the cusp of making the largest private land donation in history, to take the form of numerous national parks granted to the governments of Chile and Argentina.

Who better to capture this epic saga of love and loss on film than the Oscar-winning couple of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin? Their new documentary, Wild Life, follows Kristine Tompkins’s trajectory from barefoot Southern California girl to CEO of one of the most influential outdoor brands in the country to champion of conservation. The film will debut in select theaters starting April 14 and will be available to stream on May 26 on Disney+.

Chin met the Tompkinses through Chouinard and Rick Ridgeway, a climber and former Patagonia vice president. “Doug, Yvon, and Rick have all been heroes to me since I started out as a young dirtbag climber and photographer living in Yosemite,” Chin said in an email. And after spending time with Kristine, he “quickly learned that she is a force of nature, an incredible human being. So of course, taking on this film was something deeply personal to me.”

Before Doug died, Chin had visited the couple in South America and shot footage of them, noodling on the notion of making a film. After the kayaking accident, he and Vasarhelyi approached Kristine about putting together a movie of her life. “It took me a while to think that a film like this should be made,” said Kristine, adding that she only gave her approval because she thought it would be good for encouraging conservation efforts. “I decided if I was going to do it, I would do it only with Jimmy and Chai. They are extraordinary filmmakers and trusted friends.”

Wild Life delves into the Tompkinses’ years of joy and struggle and the aftermath of the tragedy, as told through intimate interviews with Kristine and a close circle of lifelong companions. Chin’s signature stunning photography of Chile and Argentina is intercut with 1960s footage of America’s original climbing, skiing, and surfing dirtbag royalty: Kristine singing the Beach Boys’ “California Girls”; the Grateful Dead playing at the opening of the first North Face store; Chouinard, Doug, and their funhog crew unfurling a flag after their historic ascent of Fitz Roy. The clips add levity and also bring into focus that, even before they were a couple, the Tompkinses were fundamental players in the creation myth of modern American outdoor culture.

It’s clear that Doug and Kristine were soulmates. Yet they were also intense overachievers committed to conservation work in countries that were often suspicious of and hostile toward their efforts—some Chileans, for example, thought that the couple’s real aim was to populate their land with American bison. The pair rarely had time to explore together. In the film, Kristine sets out to climb a 7,500-foot peak in Patagonia’s Chacabuco Valley that her husband and Chouinard first summited in 2009. Doug dubbed the peak Cerro Kristine. Chouinard and Ridgeway—both were on the kayaking expedition that killed Doug—accompany Kristine on her journey to reach the summit, along with Chin and professional rock climber Timmy O’Neill. “Why did we never climb our mountain together?” Kristine asks the clouds as she stands alone, looking out over Patagonia National Park.

The documentary is a testament to fierce love and how its power can serve a greater purpose. “There was a deep, deep union and devotion to each other, and they came together with a common vision,” says friend and filmmaker Edgar Boyle in Wild Life. But the grief that resulted when that union was severed by tragedy is difficult to watch. At one point, Kristine recounts, while flying with Doug’s remains to his final resting place near their home in the Chacabuco Valley, she carved their names in the coffin with a small knife. “Doug’s death was an amputation,” Kristine told me. “I took some long walks by myself and was never sure I’d turn around and walk back.”

The only way forward was to dive even further into her conservation work. With the help of a roughly 300-person staff at Tompkins Conservation, she exceeded her late husband’s dream of creating 12 national parks. The current count: 15, along with two marine parks and a total of 14.8 million protected acres in Chile and Argentina—an area roughly the size of West Virginia. Those numbers keep expanding, along with Kristine’s seemingly endless supply of energy to continue the work she started with her husband. “I carry Doug around in my pocket. If I get really stuck on something, I simply ask: ‘What would you do?’ I am just grateful that we have this marriage,” she said, still speaking of their union in the present tense. “It’s given me unbelievable strength.”

Kristine is still the president of Tompkins Conservation, but she has relinquished day-to-day operations to focus primarily on strategy. In late February, she met with Chilean president Gabriel Boric to move forward with a proposed donation of 230,000 acres on behalf of Tompkins Conservation, with a view toward creating national park number 16 at Cape Froward, on the Brunswick Peninsula, the southernmost point of the continent. The rugged, largely unexplored region is a refuge for endangered species like the huemul deer. The proposal reclassifies state land that, if included, would make the area bigger than Grand Teton National Park. In recent years, two independent local organizations have spun off from Tompkins Conservation. Rewilding Chile and Rewilding Argentina each work in their respective countries to bring back endangered species—from the Andean condor in Patagonia National Park to the jaguar in Argentina’s Iberá National Park.

“I want people to realize that this film is not about Doug and Kristine,” she told me. “It’s the representation of hundreds of Chileans’ and Argentines’ work. Mother Nature is not winning this game. We are all on the losing team, and everybody needs to join the fight.”

The post How Kristine Tompkins Helped Conserve 15 Million Acres in Patagonia appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

This article was first published by .

Linaza hiked for four hours before reaching a group of climbers who could call for a rescue. The message was sent to the unofficial rescue team of the area, the El Chaltén Alpine Rescue Centre, of which Dr. Carolina Codó is the leader. The team met to discuss the situation, aware that they were at least six hours from the accident site, and that the chances of survival while being buried in an avalanche would drop dramatically over time.

“Death by suffocation and hypothermia is inevitable,” CodĂł wrote to ClimbingÌęin an emailÌę(translated from Spanish). “Therefore, we evaluated that the [rescue team] volunteers could not be risked when the chances of survival were zero.”

Professional climber Jacob Cook was bivvied on the summit of Cerro Chaltén when he received news of the accident. The following morning, Cook and his partners descended the route Franco-Argentina and then waited all day above La Brecha for its sun-baked walls to go into the shade, providing safer conditions to descend. Cook feared for wet avalanches, like the one that took Agirre and Bilbao, as well as for La Brecha itself.

 

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La Brecha used to be a gully filled with low-angle ice which held together loose rock. Now, rising temperatures have all but erased the ancient ice and have left a dangerous shooting gallery in its wake. Cook described several climbers who have had close calls in the gully recently: a friend’s leg was broken by a falling rock, and another friend had refrigerator-sized blocks fly past him while rappelling. And in February 2022, was killed by rockfall while rappelling La Brecha.

When Cook reached La Brecha’s accident scene roughly 33 hours after the avalanche, he was struck by how unfortunate Agirre and Bilbao had been. “It’s a very dangerous place but they were also extremely unlucky to be where they were when that happened,” Cook said. “It seems unbelievably unlucky, like they could have been five meters to the left and probably survived.”

Cook blames climate change for Fitz Roy–and other Patagonian mountains—becoming more hazardous in recent years: high day-time temperatures can produce destructive wet avalanches and cause loose blocks to effectively unfreeze from alpine walls. Climbing Fitz Roy has become especially dangerous, Cook said, because La Brecha is still the best way off the peak. “There just isn’t a good descent from the mountain right now,” he said. “It’s definitely a problem facing [climbers] in El ChaltĂ©n.”

Other options include descending the North (Goretta) Pillar via the Casarotto route, which is unappealing for climbers who’ve summited via the Afanassieff as they will be rappelling more steep, technical terrain than the Franco-Argentina/La Brecha descent. There is also the descent, but Cook does not recommend it for its similarly serious nature: it’s the biggest face on Fitz Roy at 3,000 feet. “Especially onsight, you’d be rapping into an extremely committing situation,” he said.

 

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Eneko Pou, a frequent Patagonia climber and friend of Agirre, said Agirre and Bilbao were talented young alpinists with promising futures. Pou did not know Bilbao personally, but knew he was a well-respected alpinist and a career firefighter. According to Pou, Agirre was one of the strongest alpinists in Spain and had “a lot of talent doing almost everything, a lot of specialties.” She’d climbed 5.12+ and WI 6, and went on several expeditions, including Nepal in 2021, where she participated as a medic on a new route up Chekigo’s south face. Agirre also did the first female ascent of Groucho Marx in Chamonix and was a member of the National Women’s Mountaineering Team of the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing.

The post An Avalanche Killed Two Climbers in Patagonia appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

On September 14, one of the most influential business owners in the outdoor space made a decision that stunned the world. Yvon Chouinard, founder of the apparel brand Patagonia, announced that he had voluntarily given away his $3 billion company, placing ownership in a trust and vowing to spend all future profits on environmental causes. A Patagonia spokesperson said the move will generate about $100 million each year for the fight against climate change.

The decision wrote its own headlines. Outlets from the to Forbes to this website published stories highlighting the unorthodox moveÌęand its potential to do good for the planet. Everyone from to weighed in.

A month after the restructuring, though, questions linger. One of the most pressing queries is what, exactly, $100 million a year can accomplish in the world of environmental philanthropy.

The short answer: a lot, depending on where the money goes.

“With $100 million, in some places like Namibia, or Australia, you can get huge protection done,” saidÌęDavid Banks, chief conservation officer at The Nature Conservancy. “One hundred million dollars doesn’t go very far in New Hampshire or Rhode Island.”

As Patagonia begins making philanthropic decisions under its new corporate model, we spoke to experts about what the money can do for the environment, and how this compares to other paths taken by companies and billionaires who want to do good.

What Can $100 Million a Year Actually Do?

To predict Patagonia’s philanthropic potential, it’s important first to understand the company’s new structure. When Chouinard and his family changed Patagonia’s ownership model, they wanted to ensure the business maintained its current growth trajectory but started sending all profits to the environment. To accomplish those dual goals, they created a trust called Patagonia Purpose and donated 100 percent of the company’s voting stock to it, to oversee the brand’s strategic direction. The non-voting stock—about 98 percent of private Patagonia shares—were donated to a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit called the Holdfast Collective.

The Chouinards will sit on the company’s board and guide the trust, but from now on, all of Patagonia’s profits not reinvested in the business will go directly to the Holdfast Collective, and from there, to environmental causes and political action.

One hundred million dollars sounds like a lot of money—but when it comes to fighting a global crisis like climate change, it might not go as far as most people think. Many organizations already spend annual sums on climate work that dwarf Patagonia’s promised dollars.

The Nature Conservancy, for instance—the world’s largest nonprofit dedicated to conserving land and biodiversity—spent more than $156 million in 2020 on land and easement purchases around the globe, and almost $700 million on its total efforts, according to the organization’s financial reporting.

Said Banks, any group focused on natural solutions to climate change needs to look at high-value areas like the Amazon and Congo basins, which are under severe threat from industrial logging and deforestation for agriculture, and will be extremely expensive to protect in perpetuity. Banks estimates it will cost about $500 billion a year to create a fully natural climate solution that keeps global warming below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, the goal set by the Paris Agreement and other experts.

“When you think about $100 million relative to that, it’s not a lot,” he said. “But if you can use that $100 million not only to influence policy, but to demonstrate some real wins
then others can start to get on board.”

One high-value way to do that, in Banks’s view, is to support state and local bond initiatives that fund land protection. “You can put $1 million dollars into a local bond initiative that [might] generate $20, $30, $100 million a year of funding for land protection,” he said.

The Nature Conservancy calculates that in the past decade it has generated about 2,000 conservation dollars for every $1 it has spent to support ballot measures. In 2019, the group spent $18,000 campaigning for a bond initiative in King County, Washington, that ultimately generated for open spaces, parks, and trails.

And Patagonia could rely on the Holdfast Collective to dive even deeper into politics than that, if it wants. A traditional nonprofit filed with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) has significant restrictions on political donations, but a 501(c)(4)—the legal designation of the Holdfast Collective—doesn’t.

The Holdfast Collective’s new executive director, Greg Curtis, declined comment on the nonprofit’s future political funding. But if an organization cares about fighting climate change, some of that certainly depends on lobbying in Washington and supporting ballot measures, saidÌęDavid Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a publication dedicated to tracking the world of charitable giving. And Patagonia hasn’t been shy about its political activism in the past. It once with tags that read “Vote the Assholes Out.”

Wherever the Holdfast Collective’s money goes, it will no doubt occupy an important place in the world of 501(c)(4)s fighting for environmental change. Fewer 501(c)(4)s exist than traditional nonprofits in the climate space, and most are orders of magnitude smaller than the Holdfast Collective. The Citizens’ Climate Lobby, for instance, had a budget of in 2022.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the competition on the other side of the climate fight is fierce and well funded.

The oil and gas industry spent on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2021, according to watchdog website Opensecrets.org. In the first quarter of 2022, the country’s top oil and gas companies spent $12.4 million on lobbying.

“During the first three months of 2022, [those] companies spent millions lobbying congress on a range of issues and bills, including Biden’s stalled Build Back Better legislation, carbon capture and sequestration, and federal oil and gas leases, according to filings,” opensecrets.org .

“We’re seeing a kind of arms race between mega donors on the left and right,” Callahan said.

All of which has some experts asking: Could other routes have stretched Patagonia’s dollars further?

It’s a difficult question to answer. The decision to pursue this new corporate structure was, admittedly, “very unusual,” according to Callahan. “There are a lot of examples of billionaires who have given away most of their wealth, and not a lot of examples of companies that have been put into this kind of nonprofit,” he said.

Perhaps the only comparable example in recent memory is Republican donor and billionaire Barre Seid’s decision to his electronics company, worth $1.6 billion, to a conservative nonprofit dedicated to, among other things, fighting climate change legislation.

By contrast, there are plenty of recent examples of billionaires treading the more conventional path of corporate activism: the Bezos Earth Fund, named for the Amazon founder, has committed in grant money over 10 years to fight climate change, and announced in 2021 it had awarded in grants to organizations focused on climate and conservation. REI, Jumping into the 501(c)(3) space, recently started a public charity called REI Cooperative Action Fund, which has given away to 19 nonprofits working to build a more equitable and inclusive outdoor culture. And Patagonia’s fellow outdoor brand Cotopaxi operates under what it calls a “gear for good” model, wherein it gives a certain percentage of annual revenue to the Cotopaxi Foundation, which then distributes it to charitable causes. Since 2013, the foundation has distributed to programs working to promote education and lift people out of poverty.

The Chouinards could also simply have sold the company, similar to what Doug Tompkins—founder of The North Face and Esprit—did. Tompkins then used the profits for environmental causes. But Chouinard that he dismissed this idea because he wants to ensure the company maintains its core values into the future. A sale, he wrote, wouldn’t offer that guarantee.

Capitalism for Good

Patagonia has, for years, struggled with its role as a multibillion-dollar global enterprise in a world plagued by climate change, overconsumption, and pollution.

“We haven’t figured out how to make a jacket in a way that gives back to the planet,” said Corley Kenna, Patagonia’s head of communications and policy. “It’s one of the reasons why we are invested in the food business now, because you can absolutely grow food in a way that gives back to the planet.”

It’s that willingness to publicly discuss tensions over capitalism and the environment that will give Patagonia credibility in the philanthropy space, according to Banks. (Compare that to a company like Walmart, which faced criticism when it ran an anti-hunger campaign while paying employees barely more than minimum wage.) Patagonia can dive aggressively into climate work with a name that carries weight, said Banks.

“They can be the real leaders showing how it can be done.”

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We’re picking companies every month that have impressed us with their recent business savvy—whether through a new product release, a canny marketing move, a grabby social-media post, social and environmental issues or something else entirely that we didn’t see coming. The goal: to celebrate the forward thinkers, outside-the-box strategists, and generally awesome professionals moving the outdoor industry forward.

So, with a pencils-on-desk drumroll, here are September’s picks.

Winner: Patagonia

Patagonia founder and owner Yvon Chouinard made international headlines in September when he announced that he was giving away his $3 billion company to help protect the environment. Chouinard and his family have placed control of the company’s direction into a trust and created a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit that will receive all profits not reinvested in the business and spend them on environmental causes. That charitable sum is estimated to reach $100 million a year.

In establishing the new corporate structure, Chouinard and his family have ensured that Patagonia’s mission of being in business to “save our home planet” continues for generations to come.

Runner-Up: REI with Outdoor Afro Inc.

Last month, REI and Outdoor Afro Inc. launched a co-created line of outdoor clothing designed to “celebrate the nature in all of us.” The Outdoor Afro Inc. + REI Co-op Hike Collection features clothing and footwear in sizes, colors, and graphics that celebrate and encourage everyone to enjoy the outdoors comfortably and stylishly.

“Black people have always spent time outside across a variety of activities, but the community has always felt a gap in finding gear that fits, functions well, feels good, and represents their personal style,” said Rue Mapp, the founder of Outdoor Afro Inc., a for-profit group that collaborates with companies on design, marketing, and sales. “REI was the right partner to listen deeply and help us create a collection that would start to meet those needs.”

Mapp began the nonprofit Outdoor Afro (distinct from Outdoor Afro Inc.) in 2010 to encourage all people to get outside and enjoy nature. As part of her new joint venture with REI, Mapp unveiled Outdoor Afro Inc., which is now working to design and bring to market a variety of outdoor gear aimed at making the industry more inclusive.

Runner-Up: The North Face

The North Face also announced last month that, from now on, it’s calling all of its fleece products High Pile Fleece and discontinuing the name “Sherpa” in its designs.

“For decades, The North Face and the broader textile and fashion industries have used the term Sherpa to describe fleece material,” The North Face said in a statement. “But Sherpa is not an adjective; it is a term used to describe the Sherpa people—a group with a rich cultural heritage and an integral role in the world of mountaineering.”

The former Sherpa name referred to the thick fleece that resembled the wool outers commonly worn by members of the Sherpa community, famous for their heroic mountaineering deeds in summiting (and helping others summit) Mount Everest and the planet’s other highest peaks.

While the use of the term was intended as a respectful nod to the Sherpa culture and its contributions to mountaineering, The North Face said it recognizes that many of its customers remain unaware of who the Sherpa people are and of their contributions and sacrifices to exploration. Alongside the name change, The North Face is also launching a campaign designed to celebrate and educate its customer base about the Sherpa culture and highlight the accomplishments of the Sherpa community, including The North Face athlete team member Dawa Sherpa.

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On the eve of its 50th anniversary, Patagonia,Ìęone of the nation’s most innovative and ethical corporations, is under new ownership.

The outdoor apparel maker, founded in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard and run by the Chouinard family since its inception, announced today that the company has restructured, with the Chouinards ceding control to two private entities: a trust that owns all of Patagonia’s voting stock and a nonprofit called the Holdfast Collective that owns all nonvoting stock and oversees Patagonia’s environmental work, which is set to expand sharply.

In other words, one of the most powerful businessmen in the world just voluntarily gave away his company. And he did it, primarily, to fight climate change.

Effective immediately, 100 percent of Patagonia’s earnings not reinvested in the business will be distributed to the Holdfast Collective, which will use the money to help slow the advance of the climate crisis. The company has for years donated 1 percent of its sales to environmental causes, but this shift is poised to increase that figure dramatically. The charitable outlay of the new company will be roughly $100 million a year.

Ryan Gellert, the company’s current CEO, will remain in place as chief executive, and the Chouinard family will maintain heavy involvement, sitting on the company’s board, guiding the trust that owns the voting stock, and overseeing the philanthropic efforts of the Holdfast Collective. The company’s headquarters will remain in Ventura, California.

Creating a New Corporate Model

Chouinard, 83, started planning the corporate restructuring two years ago. Searching for a way to grow the company’s positive impact on the environment and increasingly queasy about his status as a billionaire, he began exploring options for divesting himself from the business he founded as a tiny mom-and-pop selling climbing gear and grew into a global brand valued at an estimated $3 billion. His thinking followed the path he has famously trod for years: bucking conventional corporate trends and redefining what entrepreneurs are capable of when they wield their businesses as social tools.

“One option was to sell Patagonia and donate all the money,” he wrote in a letter published today. “But we couldn’t be sure a new owner would maintain our values or keep our team of people around the world employed. Another path was to take the company public. What a disaster that would have been. Even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility. Truth be told, there were no good options available. So, we created our own.”

Gellert and a small team of Patagonia executives were tasked with creating the new business model. Under the cover of a project code name—Chacabuco, a nod to a fishing location in Chile—they began brainstorming solutions in mid-2020. Other than selling the company or taking it public, proposals included transforming it into a nonprofit or a consumer-owned co-op, like REI. Eventually they landed on the current plan.

“Two years ago, the Chouinard family challenged a few of us to develop a new structure with two central goals,” Gellert wrote in a release today. “They wanted us to both protect the purpose of the business and immediately and perpetually release more funding to fight the environmental crisis. We believe this new structure delivers on both.”

The restructuring required the Chouinard family—Yvon, his wife Malinda, and their children, Claire and Fletcher—to donate all their company shares to the new trust, officially called the Patagonia Purpose Trust, which will cost them about $17.5 million in gift taxes.

As for the Holdfast Collective, it’s structured as a 501(c)(4), which the company said it chose for the flexibility of the legal entity. 501(c)(4)s are allowed to make unlimited donations to political causes, meaning the Chouinards get no tax benefit for money that flows to the nonprofit.

Patagonia’s head of communications and public policy, Corley Kenna, said to expect the Holdfast Collective to distribute its funds in wide and varied ways: in grants to organizations addressing the root causes of the climate crisis, investments in land and water protection, and support for stronger environmental policy. For a hint at the type of aggressive advocacy Patagonia is likely to go after, Kenna urged people to remember this is the brand that called on its community to “” during the Trump administration, and joined with grassroots groups in Utah to for its shrinking ofÌęBears Ears National Monument.

In the end, the corporate restructuring—especially the transfer of all nonvoting stock to a nonprofit—was only possible because Patagonia doesn’t offer employee stock options. In his book The Responsible Company, published a decade ago, Chouinard outlined his concerns about employee and public ownership, arguing that wider control of the company’s shares might have prevented a change like the one announced today.

“[We] are concerned that, with shares more broadly distributed, the company would become overly cautious about undertaking risks in the pursuit of its environmental goals,” Chouinard wrote in 2012. “So that Patagonia can continue to push back the boundaries of what business considers possible, [we] are willing to undertake risks that might give pause to broader ownership, even of employees committed to reducing environmental impact.”

Announcing the Changes

The company shared the news with employees in a virtual town hall this morning. In its announcement, Patagonia pointed out that Chouinard is in good health, but that he “wanted to have a plan in place for the future of the company and the future of the planet,” according to Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, a board member.

“The current system of capitalism has made its gains at an enormous cost,” wrote Charles Conn, Patagonia’s board chair, in a release today. “The world is literally on fire. Companies that create the next model of capitalism through deep commitment to purpose will attract more investment, better employees, and deeper customer loyalty. They are the future of business if we want to build a better world, and that future starts with what Yvon is doing now.”

True to its talent for attractively marketing its environmental efforts, Patagonia has devised a pair of slogans that sum up the company’s retooled structure. Instead of going public, the brand has “gone purpose.” And because the Patagonia Purpose Trust is the business’s controlling shareholder and must adhere to the company’s environmental mission, the brand now claims that Earth is its “only shareholder.”

The claim may be less exaggerated than it sounds. The Patagonia Purpose Trust has no individual beneficiaries and the stock it controls can never be sold, meaning, according to deputy general counsel Greg Curtis, “there is no financial incentive, or structural opportunity, for any drift in this trust’s purpose.” An unnamed independent protector has also been designated to “monitor and enforce” the mission of the trust.

“It’s been a half-century since we began our experiment in responsible business,” Chouinard wrote today, addressing the company’s roughly 3,500 employees. “If we have any hope of a thriving planet 50 years from now, it demands all of us doing all we can with the resources we have. As the business leader I never wanted to be, I am doing my part. Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth, we are using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source. We’re making Earth our only shareholder. I am dead serious about saving this planet.”

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Eddie Bauer is getting into the used-gear game. With the brand’s expansion of its program this month—which now offers resale products at huge markdowns, as well as gear rentals—the company joins a growing movement to make the outdoor space more inclusive and environmentally sound by eschewing the “new, new, new” mantra of the past.

“Our goal with the (Re)șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű program is to provide a more accessible option for getting people outdoors, as well as reducing our environmental footprint,” vice president of Eddie Bauer marketing, Kristen Elliott, told OBJ. “The program allows us to bring technical apparel and gear to more people at an approachable cost, and ensure more people have the outdoor experiences they want.”

Eddie Bauer is only the latest in a growing list of brands using circular commerce to offer affordable products to more customers and keep goods out of landfills.

Here are five other companies with similar programs.

Patagonia

Through Patagonia’s program, customers can trade in their worn and torn Patagonia clothing, which is then patched and resold, in exchange for store credit. The mismatched colors from the scrap fabric used to patch tears is touted as a selling point. (And, in truth, some of the of old Patagonia gear are pretty cool.)

REI

Who doesn’t need more REI gift cards? Co-op members get one when they trade in clothing through the retailer’s program. Pieces are assessed, cleaned, and then put back into the world through REI’s .

The North Face

Returned, damaged, and defective North Face clothing is repaired and offered at discount prices through the company’ program—which, like Patagonia’s, leans hard into the funky, bohemian vibe that cutting up clothing and sewing mismatched parts back together inevitably produces. Clothing that has been patched is sold as its own dedicated collection, called .

ŽĄ°ùłŠâ€™t±đ°ùČâłæ

Feeling entrepreneurial? The “dead bird” company allows customers to sell used ŽĄ°ùłŠâ€™t±đ°ùČâłæ clothing and gear themselves through itsÌęÌęprogram. Customers using the program receive a give card good toward purchases online and at Arc’teryx’s retail locations.

Stio

ł§łÙŸ±ŽÇ’s program pays up to 25 percent of original retail value for used Stio pieces that customers send in. Participants receive a credit that can be used for purchases at Stio.com or any location.

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Maybe we’re biased, but we like to think outdoor gear companies are changing the world in ways that far surpass the size of their business. The outdoor industry is full of adventurers who are passionate about playing hard in nature and working hard to protect it. And you can bet the people who work at these brands are talking to one another.

They meet up at industry events, and they ski, climb, hike, camp, paddle, and practice yoga with another, trading intel about threats our public lands face and trying to figure out what they can do about it. Many of these companies’ leaders directly and indirectly push each other to set and meet challenging goals for getting plastic out of shipping, making their designs more eco-friendly, or rallying customers to advocate for public policy change. And as they influence one another to make their businesses better, they influence us to make better choices, too.

Of course, the ultimate sustainability move is to not make anything at all. Making more stuff—regardless of what it is—requires resources. Crafting apparel from organic cotton doesn’t un-use the water it takes to turn that cotton into a t-shirt, and neither does planting an entire forest of trees. So it takes a lot more than greenÌędesign to have a net-positive impact on the world.Ìę

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies doing valuable work to not just offset the impact of producing consumer goods but also improve the outdoors. We think the the eight brands listed here go above and beyond. They push the envelope for sustainability in design—which should be the bare minimum these days anyway—raise the standards for corporate and social responsibility in ways that improve lives around the world, have meaningful environmental impact, and influence both competitors and customers for the better.Ìę

Patagonia

Obviously, you can’t talk about advocacy, conservation, or political action within the outdoor industry without namedropping Patagonia. In addition to the brand’s well-publicized stunts to raise money for environmental causes—like donating all of its Black Friday sales, , to 1% for the Planet back in 2016—Patagonia also holds social influence to motivate its customers to take political action. The company’s Worn Wear program has made it cool to repair, upcycle, and recycle your worn-out stuff instead of just tossing it or letting it rot in the back of your closet, keeping untold heaps of clothing out of landfills. It’s not afraid to campaign for political change or pick fights with state, federal, or outdoor industry leadership. And Patagonia’s workplace policies have set and raised standards that transcend the outdoor industry, from offering childcare at its headquarters to committing to posting bail for employees who are arrested for protesting abortion restrictions.

The bottom line: Patagonia is the O.G. benchmark for corporate responsibility, and has shown us time and again that it is indeed possible to run a profitable business while also standing for something, treating people well, and making a damn good product that lasts for generations—the ultimate sustainable design.

REI

As one of the biggest retailers of outdoor gear in the U.S., REI Co-op holds a massive amount of influence. And it’s proven willing to wield that power to make positive change not just for the environment but for social good. Take REI’s, for example: a $30 million program to provide funding and support for non-white entrepreneurs—who currently make up just 1 percent of outdoor industry brand founders. Separately, the REI Cooperative Action Fund provides grants to local organizations across the country who are working on recreation access issues for the millions of Americans who can’t easily get out in nature or don’t feel like they belong in the great outdoors.

REI also exerts influence on the brands it stocks, pushing them to invest in greener design and expand size inclusivity. Its demand that brand partners do the following, among other things: establish an action plan to calculate and reduce their carbon footprints; annually measure and share sustainability outputs performance; have policies in place to prevent cultural appropriation; and use ethically-sourced down and wool. By 2030, every product on REI shelves is expected to have at least one for sustainability, such as Bluesign-approved chemicals or Climate Neutral certification.

As a beloved retailer and adventure outfitter, REI influences us, too: REI’s shares information about pending legislation affecting climate change, equity in outdoor access, and conservation, and provides tools to help customers get in touch with their elected officials. Through this platform, REI has recorded sending over 140,000 letters to representatives . And you can call #OptșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű a publicity stunt if you like, but show us another ad campaign that sparked a widespread seven-year (and counting) tradition to ditch Black Friday shopping in favor of spending the day outdoors.

Finally, REI has demonstrated attention and care to threats to its own employees, if they have to travel out of state to do it.

Tentree

Here’s the problem with audacious claims to change the world through product sales or one-for-one style donation campaigns (“you buy X, we give Y”): How on Earth can you verify that the cause you think you’re helping actually benefits from your dollars? Tentree has clearly thought about this.

Since 2012, Tentree has been planting 10 trees for every product sold. That amounts to more than 80 million trees to date, and they’re well on their way to their goal of planting 1 billion by 2030. Since this past Earth Day they’re taking it one step further with a blockchain verification system that lets customers check in and confirm that the trees their products supported have actually been planted. The system,, is backed by the public blockchain platform Cardano and makes it possible for everyone involved in the tree planting to keep in touch, track progress, and stay accountable to orders placed. Other companies that promote planting programs can use the technology, too.Ìę

Tentree’s commitment to transparency applies to its own business, too: The company has gone through the rigorous process of being (with an impressive score of 124.6, far above the required 80 point threshold) and has published an explaining exactly how they measure the environmental impact of their products and how they compare to conventional design. Want to support the cause without buying new stuff? Tentree also enables customers to buy carbon offsets in the form of themed tree planting packages to make up for Netflix binges, delivery habits, international flights, and more.Ìę

Janji

Janji stands out for its to support one goal—clean water access—around the globe. Each year, the running apparel brand commissions local artists to design a unique product line with a limited run. For their latest product drop, Janji hired Indonesian artist . He used a traditional Batik technique, which involves color blocking on fabric canvas with wax, to create his prints for the series.

The company takes special care to manufacture clothes using durable fabric that is often recycled and designed to reduce microfiber shedding. Two percent of proceeds from every piece sold go back to a local NGO partner working on water sanitation and access projects in the artists’ communities. Janji’s latest NGO recipient is , which is working to remove garbage from Indonesia’s Citarum River, one of the world’s most polluted waterways.

Janji also recently introduced a membership program that gives customers a lifetime discount in exchange for a $25 fee, to those same clean water initiatives around the world.Ìę

Toad & Co

Being a sustainable apparel company requires more these days than simply using the least water-intensive fabric you can find. And while Toad & Co is committed to using organic and recycled fibers and Bluesign- and Oeko-Tex-certified materials, it’s also shown a clear commitment to investing in the circular economy. As a founding partner to the Renewal Workshop, which has since been acquired by global supply chain manager Bleckmann, Toad & Co got in on the ground floor with an idea that has since diverted over .

More recently, the brand has curated its own vintage line and partnered with online secondhand retailer ThredUp to encourage customers to send in clothing from any brand in exchange for store credit. They’re working to ship those products in eco-friendlier ways, too. From experimenting with reusable mailers and fully-recyclable paper packaging to to test-drive paper poly bags (the protective coverings your clothing is usually shipped in), Toad & Co seems willing to take risks in pursuit of —one of which is to be plastic-free by 2026.

Toad & Co has a longstanding commitment to providing employment and improving recreation access issues for people with disabilities. In 1997 the brand partnered with nonprofit Search, Inc. to co-found the Planet Access Company, which provides job training and employment for people with developmental disabilities. Since 2000, Toad & Co has also provided grants to fund outdoor adventures for people who face barriers to access.

LifeStraw

LifeStraw acts like a people-first, not product-first, company. It started out by developing a simple plastic straw for humanitarian work to prevent Guinea worm disease. In the ensuing decades, the company has grown to make impressive sales of trail-focused water filters, and it puts proceeds toward funding clean water projects and providing emergency relief in disaster situations.

LifeStraw hires local employees in the communities it operates instead of dropping in workers from elsewhere in the world, and provides necessary education, training, and support around water safety rather than just dropping off products and heading home. Its efforts have helped tens of millions of people, including 6 million kids a year who get access to safe drinking water with LifeStraw water purification systems in their schools.Ìę

LifeStraw is certified as a Climate Neutral company and has , as does its parent company, Vestergaard. It also has a robust internal code of conduct and non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, all of which are publicly available to read.

BioLite

BioLite’s innovative solar, power, and cookstove products make great backpacking companions, but its household products are also directly changing lives in communities where people lack access to electricity, artificial lighting, and clean-burning stoves. Biolite cookstoves have been certified by the United Nations as a viable carbon-reducing solution, which they’ve been able to monetize to offset their production costs and provide the stoves inexpensively to people who need them. While producing solar products can be environmentally taxing itself, BioLite has been independently to prove that the carbon emissions from those its manufacturing operations are suitably offset.

BioLite estimates that it provided clean energy access to over 2 million people last year alone, and is aiming to reach 20 million total by 2025. The brand also says it offset an estimated 719,000 tons of CO2 in 2021, equivalent to taking 155,000 cars (that’s very roughly the entire population of a small city like Tallahassee, Florida) off the road for an entire year.

And if that’s not enough, BioLite products are also putting significant cash back into the pockets of its customers. According to the company’s the annual energy savings families have realized from these products amounted to an estimated $176 million last year, which for many of BioLite’s lowest-income customers equates to about 14 percent of their annual income.Ìę

The North Face

As the outdoor industry’s second-biggest brand (Patagonia is the first, ), when The North Face speaks, everyone listens. And by expertly straddling the adventure space and lifestyle consumer apparel, TNF has a wide, diverse audience. In recent years, the brand has put money and movements behind inclusivity projects making impacts in communities across the U.S. Just one example: TNF’s adventure grant program Explore Fund recently got a major overhaul when the brand committed an additional $7 million and . And another: the Walls Are Meant for Climbing campaign provided funding for local community recreation projects like a climbing wall in in the face of calls to “build that wall” at the border.

Behind the scenes, TNF is continually working on improving its design sustainability—and with the scale of the business, those changes have wide-reaching effects. Its PFC-free Futurelight series pushes the envelope for sustainable waterproof gear made without harsh, greenhouse gas-emitting chemicals. And to using 100 percentÌęorganic, regenerative, responsibly-sourced or recycled fabrics, FSC-certified shipping materials, and no single-use plastics by 2025.

TNF has also made it easier for individual customers to shop more sustainably. Its sell repaired gear and one-of-a-kind pieces, like down parkas, that have been professionally cleaned and repaired by designers who’ve taken rips and tears as invitations to make something special. And through its program, people can drop off unwanted clothes at any TNF retail shop—regardless of who made them—so they can be sent off and sorted for reuse or responsible recycling into raw materials.

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