I learned about it through Blue Heart: https://blueheart.patagonia.com
And the story I heard about it was: their CEO went on a fly fishing trip there, really loved it, was told by the local guide that all will be gone in short time for hydro plants. He then decided to use all/most/a significant portion of the marketing budget in this campaign instead.
You can always criticize ulterior motives - and we will never know for sure. But I give them some kudos for the initiatives they take - like taking their biggest revenue driver (e.g., dry suits) and deciding to make it “as ecological as possible” and 3x as expensive along the way...
Every company is in the business of making money. And the fashion industry is known for making little money and having a big environmental impact. I don’t mind if somebody goes a more risky route that also makes them money along the way...
I think what they do is great, but I would take their campaigns, and especially all the Yvon stories, with a pinch of salt.
Tonuge in cheek, I'll share a story of my own - to launch a new Patagonia store in a Europe, they had bespoke furniture commissioned from recycled wood (probably using no solvents etc etc). Great! Except that it was made by in California, covered in bubble wrap and sent thousands of miles by land and sea.
Yes, No worries, I am not glorifying them.
But I guess they try harder than I do. That’s good enough for a start...
This is Patagonia's brand strategy to sell products, rather than a political policy. So they have the luxury of pointing out problems and being light on the detail of solutions.
They get to focus on the negative ecological role of dams, and generally promoting reducing resource consumption. All energy production has a negative ecological impact to a greater or lesser degree, and it's rich for a company selling mainly things we don't need to talk about reducing consumption. The headlines are also different to the detail which calls for decommissioning the worst offenders rather than all dams. The difficult broader question of where energy comes from instead is ducked:
> ... solar, wind, tidal, wave, geothermal and biomass are helping us to transition to a clean energy future. [1]
The cynic in me feels like there is probably scope for future marketing campaigns about the ecological impact of these too. I had professional dealings with the company and advise taking it with a pinch of salt.
[1] https://www.patagonia.com/on/demandware.static/Sites-patagon...