I’m Alastair Humphreys, adventurer, book writer, and overexcited sender of four newsletters. Nobody needs that many emails from me!

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Three Ideas From Matt

Back in September 2022, Patagonia announced—amid much fanfare—that it had made ‘earth’ its only shareholder. As a podcaster and journalist, I was invited to the initial town hall press conference and came away both beguiled and impressed.

But as the weeks passed and the decision came under scrutiny, I realised it offered a fascinating entry point into some big, important questions.

The result was my three-part series The Announcement, a deep dive into Patagonia’s move that Surfer Magazine called “the definitive statement of sustainable business.”

Now that the series has been out for a few months, here are three things I’ve learned:

1. The truth is always somewhere in the middle

In the immediate aftermath of Patagonia’s announcement, the response quickly collapsed into the kind of binary, zero-sum debate that feels all too familiar these days (one reason I haven’t been on Facebook in five years).

In one camp: Yvon Chouinard is a visionary genius, and Let My People Go Surfing is the greatest book ever written.

In the other: the whole thing is just a slick PR stunt—a blatant tax dodge dressed up in eco-saint clothing.

Yet even a cursory look at Patagonia’s own press materials (hardly an unbiased source) revealed far more nuance. Here was a surprisingly accessible way into some of the most urgent issues of our time: the democratic power of unelected billionaires, the role of ‘business for good’ in tackling the climate crisis, the state of philanthropic capitalism, and the damage caused by our reflexive rush to judgement, driven by social media’s demand for instant, binary takes.

That’s why I made the series—to explore all of this in depth, and to show that the truth was far messier, more morally complex, and ultimately more human than either side of the debate suggested.

A bit like life, really.

2. Timing is everything

My original plan was wildly optimistic: finish The Announcement by September 2023, a year after the original event. (In hindsight, I’ve no idea what I was thinking.)

So I reset my sights on September 2024—the two-year anniversary. That deadline came and went, too, in true Douglas Adams style: “whooshed overhead.”

Eventually, I wrapped the project in December 2024. But then came the question: when to release it?

I knew Christmas was a non-starter. So I landed—somewhat arbitrarily—on the second week of January 2025, basically by pointing at a calendar and hoping for the best.

As launch day approached, I worried I’d waited too long. Would anyone still care?

What I didn’t anticipate was Elon Musk. His antics had made the question of unaccountable billionaires and their influence on democracy one of the hottest topics around—suddenly making the series more relevant than ever.

The timing was uncanny, and entirely unplanned.

Now, with many of the themes I explored gaining real mainstream traction, it feels even more prescient.

3. You can’t control how people interpret your work (and that’s a good thing)

I hoped The Announcement had something meaningful to say about philanthropy, democracy, capitalism, and the complicated promise of ‘business for good’.

But after working on it for two years, I honestly had no idea. Like most creative projects, it had become impossible to see clearly. I was plagued by doubt, convinced some parts just didn’t work. (Naturally, those turned out to be the bits people liked most.)

So it’s been a genuine surprise—and delight—to see how deeply listeners have engaged with the series, and how much they’ve taken from it.

It’s a reminder of one of the oldest creative truths: do your best work, put it out into the world, and let go.

Watching people wrestle with these themes—sometimes in ways far beyond what I imagined—has been one of the most rewarding parts of the whole experience.

One Suggestion For Us To Try

Be honest about your impact—and act accordingly.

One of the key takeaways from making The Announcement was this: there’s a lot of well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective ‘activism’ in the outdoor industry, especially when it comes to sustainability and climate action.

That goes for individuals, but also for brands—many of whom, I think, could benefit from thinking more deeply and honestly about what they’re actually trying to achieve.

It’s a point made powerfully by Erinch Sahan of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab in episode three, when he criticised what he called “the purpose industry” that’s sprung up around the B Corp movement:

“There’s now a whole industry of people earning a livelihood by promoting B Corps and helping companies become B Corps. Their livelihoods depend on maintaining a positive marketing image.

The process also requires companies to market the B Corp idea itself—creating a kind of euphoria, a positive story that makes it really hard to then be honest about what the tool is, what it isn’t, and what it actually reveals about a company’s values at its core.”

This really resonates with me.

When I’m not making podcasts, I run a marketing agency called All Conditions Media. And the most common thing I hear from new clients is: “We want to be like Patagonia.”

But here’s the thing about Patagonia: they’ve never tried to be like anyone else.

Instead, they’ve consistently challenged themselves to make a real, measurable impact. That’s led them to do genuinely progressive things: founding 1% for the Planet, becoming one of the first B Corps, and most recently, setting up a non-profit to channel the majority of their profits.

That’s what sets them apart. Not the messaging—the action.

And that, to me, is the real lesson from both Patagonia’s decision and the series as a whole:

We all need to ask ourselves a more forthright question:
What action can I take that will actually make a difference to the issues I claim to care about?

Not what sounds good. Not what ticks the boxes.
What actually helps.