We join with those who call out the name of George Floyd in sorrow and anger against the systemic racism that pervades our land. We stand in solidarity with African Americans and people of color, including those among our colleagues and their families. And we call on business to work with government and civil society to address racism. We know that we have work to do.
Re: Supporting the outdoor recreation economy and recovery of individuals, communities, and outdoor companies in any upcoming pandemic response legislation
Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leaders McCarthy, McConnell and Schumer:
Our outdoor recreation economy generates $887 billion in consumer spending and 7.6 million jobs annually. The outdoor industry comprises 2.2 percent of the United States GDP and, prior to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, was growing faster than the economy. In addition, communities with access to outdoor recreation assets like trails, waterways, and parks of all types are attracting and retaining business investments, as more and more businesses rely on quality of life to attract employees.
Our system of parks and public lands being open for public use is critical for small and large retailers and outdoor businesses, along with the supply chain that serves them. Plus, these natural places bring quality of life to communities across the nation. Every
part of this system has been interrupted by COVID-19, impacting the health and wellness of individuals, companies, and communities.
Dear Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, and Leader McCarthy:
Thank you for your leadership in bringing forward the previous COVID-19 legislation to support the economy and the American public through this pandemic. As we navigate an uncertain future and work to address the public health and economic crisis, we must also protect our fundamental rights and democratic institutions. Paramount among these is the integrity of our elections.
As American business leaders, we stand together to protect the physical safety of our employees and communities while also protecting their right to be heard on Election Day. Public health is essential but so is civic health. If we take action now, we do not have to sacrifice one to achieve the other.
We call on Congress to provide state and local governments with the resources they need to ensure that all eligible voters can vote safely, including methods such as:
● Making vote by mail available to all eligible voters. Allow voters to register online, request mail-in ballots to complete in the safety of their homes and return ballots via the U.S. Postal Service, postage paid.
● Extending early in-person voting. Offer at least two weeks of early voting at physical polling locations, including weekend voting, to avoid overcrowded polling places and to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
The necessary funding for safe voting upgrades, estimated at $4 billion, will ensure state and local officials have the personnel and equipment necessary to distribute mail-in ballots, administer early voting locations safely, and tally votes accurately and efficiently.
Dear Madam Speaker:
As the people’s advocate focused on improving the everyday lives of Americans, our country needs your leadership more than ever to push for funding to protect affordable and quality child care to ensure that as the economy starts to reopen and working parents return to their jobs, there’s capacity to meet demand.
Patagonia has a 40-year history of providing on-site child care and knows the essential role it plays in a healthy and equitable workforce. Supporting working parents isn’t just the right thing to do—it makes good business sense as it helps us retain great talent (100 percent of new moms return to work at Patagonia) and creates strong employee morale. Our Ventura, California, campus has an outdoor playground smack-dab in the middle, and we hear kids playing as we go from meeting to meeting— those joyful noises have a profound way of putting things in perspective. As discussion begins about how to get our country working again, the central role of child care in enabling parents to return to work has received scant attention.
While the ultimate economic impact is still unknown, we are certain that COVID-19 and its aftermath pose the most serious and far-reaching business challenge we have ever had to face. We’ll face that challenge as we always have, making the incredibly difficult decisions along the way guided by our values as a responsible company and evaluating the impact each decision has on our employees, our supply chain partners, the people making our products and the planet.
Dear 1% for the Planet Community,
I’ve never celebrated Earth Day. I’ve always felt that all of that attention on just one day distracts us from the need to be taking action for the planet every day.
But these are extraordinary times. This pandemic is showing us clearly that if we put off what needs to be done, it ends up coming back to bite us. We’ve known for a long time that there would be a global pandemic, and we’ve done nothing. We’ve known for decades about global warming, and we’ve done nothing. We’ve got to choose to act.
“President Trump just removed protections for tributaries and wetlands in your community,” said Rose Marcario, president and CEO of Patagonia. “This comes after polluting your air, putting your public lands under threat and ignoring the climate crisis.” Enacted in 1972, the Clean Water Act was a bipartisan agreement to protect all “waters of the United States.”
Here is an except from an op-ed in CNN by Patagonia’s Environmental Advocate, Avi Garbow. Read the full piece here.
While our nation reels from the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration is accelerating a harmful agenda -- rollbacks that dismantle critical health and environmental protections, and that will surely deepen the climate crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic is taking over communities around the world at an astounding rate. While testing availability in the United States is still limited, and so the extent of the virus’s spread is largely unknown, we want to do our part to protect everyone. The safety of our employees and our communities is our top priority, and we are taking responsible precautions to help stop the spread of this scary virus where we can.
As COVID-19 spreads—and is now officially a pandemic—we are taking additional safety measures to protect our employees and customers. The scale of impact is still unknown, and we want to do our part to protect our community especially while testing availability is unknown.
We will temporarily close our stores, offices and other operations at the end of business on Friday, March 13, 2020. Employees who can work from home will do so. All Patagonia employees will receive their regular pay during the closure. We apologize that over the next two weeks, there will be delays on orders and customer-service requests. We ask for your understanding and patience. We will reassess and post an update on March 27, 2020.
At Patagonia, we’ve always been motivated to find real, meaningful ways to build a supply chain that reflects our values. We helped found the Fair Labor Association to work with like-minded companies and experts to set standards that lift up workers’ rights in a globalized world. The Fair Labor Association has done a remarkable job giving workers around the world a voice in their own futures, making them safer at work, and conducting independent monitoring and third-party complaint processes that galvanize real, lasting change for workers everywhere.
DISTRICT 15 is an important short documentary that follows the youth activists of Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) and their fight against oil and gas operations in their communities.
Urban oil and gas drilling sites across the United States are disproportionately located in communities of color and low-income communities. Wilmington, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, is a microcosm of this environmental injustice. DISTRICT 15highlightsthe hope and tenacity of the youth of Wilmington as they push the Los Angeles City Council to prohibit new and existing oil and gas drilling operations within 2,500 feet of their homes, schools and hospitals.
A coalition of U.S. companies representing more than 2 million workers has come together for a nonpartisan movement called Time to Vote. The goal is to increase voter participation in the Nov. 3, 2020 general election.
There is no shortage of hurdles to voting, but no one should have to choose between earning a paycheck and casting a ballot. Time to Vote companies have an important role in supporting their employees’ ability to make sure they are registered to vote and have time to study their ballots and perform their civic duty.
This op-ed by Rose Marcario, president and CEO of Patagonia and Land Tawney, president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers was originally published in The Missoulian.
One hundred years ago, a gold prospector named Ralph Cameronattempted to claim the Grand Canyon. It seems ridiculous now, but it’s true — he wanted to get rich mining the land, and if President Theodore Roosevelt hadn’t signed into law a powerful conservation bill, we might have lost one of our nation’s greatest treasures.
The timely new documentary feature Public Trust from director David Garrett Byars (No Man's Land), executive producers Yvon Chouinard and Robert Redford and Patagonia Films will have its world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana, on Presidents’ Day, February 17, 2020.
Today, sovereign tribal nations, local and national groups, all plaintiffs in the federal court cases challenging the legality of the Trump Administration’s reduction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, released a joint statement. This statement comes in response to the Bureau of Land Management’s Records of Decision finalizing resource management plans for the Monuments.
“President Trump just removed protections for tributaries and wetlands in your community. This comes after polluting your air, putting your public lands under threat and ignoring the climate crisis. Make sure you are registered to vote today, make a voting plan, and show up in November to stop the pillaging of our planet.” - Rose Marcario, President and CEO of Patagonia
The Ktunaxa Nation Council (KNC) is honoured and heartened to announce that Qat’muk, which includes the Jumbo Valley, will remain wild. The Jumbo Glacier Resort, a source of great conflict for the last 30 years, will not be built now, or ever.
The climate crisis may be the hardest test humanity has ever faced — the next 10 years will determine whether we pass or fail. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently confirmed, it will be impossible to stop global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius if we don't drastically reduce emissions by 2030. The consequences will be inconceivable and irreversible.
