027: Rick Ridgeway/At The Edge Of The Cliff
“We’re in business to be an agent of environmental change.”
I’ve had a few heroes on the Looking Sideways Action Sports podcast, but Rick Ridgeway, my guest for episode 027, might just top the lot.
Rick Ridgeway first attained legendary status as a climber, mountaineer, explorer, sailor and adventurer. He was part of the first American party to summit K2, made the first coast-to-coast traverse of Borneo and has an endless list of similarly impressive achievements embellishing his adventure CV. He has also been a writer, film-maker, director and producer.
- How environmentalism is woven into Patagonia’s DNA.
- How the company uses business as a tool for environmental protectionism.
- The importance of safeguarding your key values.
- How nature and wildness can influence an individual’s own core values and sense of mortality and humbleness.
This one was a real privilege, a chance to spend an hour with one of the outdoor world’s true innovators and visionary thinkers, and I hope you enjoy listening to the wisdom of this wonderfully articulate and generous orator as much as I did. Don’t miss it.
If you only have five minutes…
Listen to this section - Rick on how time outdoors can influence our core values and sense of mortality.
Show Notes
- Arrival in England
- Speaking at the COP23 Climate Change Summit.
- We Are Still In – the unofficial American Pavilion
- Rick’s current job now – Vice President of Public Engagement – and what it entails.
- “The cliff out there on the horizon line.”
- How Patagonia uses the business as a tool for environmental protectionism.
- How ‘micro’ environmental consequences were in the DNA of the company from the start.
- Early battles against Ventura city council plans to destroy a surf break.
- Supporting individuals and activists to effect positive change on a wider scale.
- Rick’s day-to-day – less responsibility than privilege.
- Patagonia Mission number 1.
- Worn Wear
- Mission number 2 – and the inherent contradictions contained therein
- How these first two components create Patagonia’s business values.
- Mission number 3 – implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
- Articulating the environmental crisis.
- Patagonia’s KPIs – the state of the environment and the earth’s health.
- Rick’s natural optimism and Yvon’s natural pessimism.
- ‘The trouble with despair is that it’s useless and it’s no fun’.
- Climate change as a symptom of the real problem – continued consumption and affluence amid a growing population.
- The three categories of climate change solutions:
- The importance of regenerative farming and grazing.
- Making your own habits and opinions answerable to these drastic environmental needs.
- Squaring your own contradictions and inconsistencies.
- ‘Figure out what you’re good at. And use what you’re good at as a tool’.
- How Yvon and Rick met.
- How their relationship developed in line with the growth of Patagonia’s values.
- The importance of protecting Patagonia’s culture as the company has grown.
- ‘Patagonia as a company is paranoid about growth’.
- The importance of guarding the company’s distribution channels to sustain the culture.
- Patagonia as the first B Corporation in the state of California, thus enshrining the values into law and safeguarding them long into the future.
- Rick’s views on his own adventuring life – ‘conquistadors of the useless’.
- How nature and wildness can influence an individual’s own core values and sense of mortality and humbleness.
- Witnessing first hand the degradation and decline of the wild places of the world.
- How Rick views other brands trying to operate in a similar environmental space.
- 1% For The Planet.
- The Tinshed Adventures fund
- Patagonia’s present – and what the future holds.
People Mentioned
- Yvon Chouinard
- EO Wilson
- Chris Bonington
- Kriss Tompkins
- Lionel Terrey
- Doug Tompkins
Places Mentioned
- Manchester
- Ventura
- Bonn
- United States
- Boston
- Kendal Film Festival
- Fitzroy
- El Chalten