Outdoor apparel company Patagonia has announced that founder Yvon Chouinard and his family have transferred ownership to a trust and a nonprofit organization created to help fight climate change and protect the planet.

The Patagonia Purpose Trust now owns all the voting stock in the company (2 percent of the total), while the Holdfast Collective owns all the nonvoting stock (98 percent of the total). The trust will be overseen by family members and close advisors to ensure that there is never deviation from the founder’s intent. Patagonia will distribute all profits not reinvested back into the company as a dividend to the Holdfast Collective, which, in turn, will fund efforts to protect nature and biodiversity, support thriving communities, and address the environmental crisis. The company expects to pay out an annual dividend of roughly $100 million.

The New York Times reports that, in donating their shares to a trust, the Chouinards will pay about $17.5 million in taxes on the gift. Patagonia will remain a B Corp and continue to donate 1 percent of its annual sales to grassroots activists.

“It’s been a half-century since we began our experiment in responsible business,” said Chouinard. “If we have any hope of a thriving planet 50 years from now, it demands all of us doing all we can with the resources we have. As the business leader I never wanted to be, I am doing my part. Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth, we are using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source. We’re making Earth our only shareholder.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/studio023)