Entry #007 REI & The Divestment Campaign : Tyler Young

Selfishly cutting class for a cause greater than myself. I was invited to be involved in an environmental activism campaign.

Our mission was to convince the outdoor brand REI, which is a member owned cooperative, to divest their money from the fossil fuel industry. As members of the Cooperative, REI took us seriously. It also helped that we had a petition with 30,000 signatures that change.org was pushing for us. REI knew that we were their customer base, and maybe they were appeasing, or maybe they were genuinely interested in hearing our ideas and best practices for divestment. Either way, they invited us to come up to their flagship store in Seattle, all expenses paid.

We met with their CFO, Head of Marketing, and HR Lawyer, and talked about divestment in a serious way. We Kindly asked them to stop greenwashing the brand. We connected them with Kat Taylor & Beneficial State Bank which we recommended for their pension funds as a start, in addition to partnering with other outdoor brands to set a new industry standard, we’re looking at you Patagonia!

They were receptive to our ideas, and maybe even considered using their money for good (which they already do a good deal of) instead of helping fund the fossil fuel industry, albeit inadvertently, through their banking practices, but I wouldn’t claim to know the half of it, and while I love industry leaders, I would not say this is the biggest problem in the world, but it might be REI’s. It actually might place just behind their (unlawful as discussed by our lawyer) decisions to exclude cooperative members from voting on the board meetings which is mandated in their bylaws as a cooperative.

But what do I know, this was an activism campaign, not a life’s work. The meeting went well, they were receptive. They haven’t changed a thing since. To this day, I am not sure if I am for or against “Greenwashing.” We were sure to take an extra day for a hike in the Enchantments before we made our way back to Eugene in our 2013 Nissan leaf which we opted for as transportation instead of their complimentary corporate airfare which they offered to us. We love the outdoors, and we hope to remain members for life.