Lululemon founder Chip Wilson gifts $100M to help preserve B.C.’s nature

Lululemon founder and billionaire Chip Wilson is donating $100 million to the B.C. Parks Foundation to help protect and enhance the province’s nature.

The donation, which was announced at an event held in Vancouver’s Stanley Park on Thursday, will be made through the Wilson 5 Foundation.

“It gives us incredible pleasure to announce today that we’re donating $100 million to the B.C. Parks Foundation,” Wilson said. “It is one of the very, very few places on earth that is virtually untouched. … We can’t see the forest through the trees about how special British Columbia is.”

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The commitment is part of the B.C. Parks Foundation’s launch of “25×25”, a multi-year campaign to protect 25 per cent of land and waters by 2025, in partnership with Indigenous people.

The donation is being put to work right away in three ecosystems: the Falling Creek Sanctuary, Teit’s Sanctuary, and Bourguiba Springs.

“We are so thankful for the hikes, the parks, and the adventures that we get to take being outside in this beautiful province, and we want to thank the customers of ours, from Arc’teryx and Lululemon and all our other businesses, for helping us get here — you’re all part of it,” Wilson said.

The announcement comes a day after Patagonia founder and billionaire Yvon Chouinard said he is giving away the company to a trust that will use its profit to tackle climate change.

Wilson previously made a $4 million donation to protect the coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem and earlier this year made a $100 million commitment to medical research on facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.

The B.C. Parks Foundation started in 2018 with the goal of improving and expanding the province’s parks system.

With files from John Ackermann