We Must Return to a Simpler Way

Editor’s note: In 1995, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard was struggling to reconcile the impact of his company with his environmental values, and he wrote this essay to address that dilemma and articulate what he saw as the best path forward. His words were prescient and remain relevant, even vital, three decades later. Patagonia now sells a billion dollars worth of goods a year, and climate change is manifest everywhere. Taking radical responsibility for our own spending, the companies we operate and support, and the government we create is essential, Chouinard declared, a message never more important than now.

Essay edited for length and style.

As a young man, my passion was climbing mountains, and I earned a living working as a blacksmith forging pitons. The only pitons available in the late fifties were from Europe and were made of iron. The theory was that because the malleable iron was inexpensive and molded well into rock cracks, the pitons could be left in place for the