The North Face Fashion Brand Refuses To Serve Oil Firm

A Texas-based oil company that ordered jackets for its employees from The North Face was rejected because it was an oil firm, with its CEO pointing out the irony of such a decision.

“They told us we did not meet their brand standards,” Adam Anderson, chief executive of Innovex Downhole Solutions, told CBS7. “We were separately informed that what that really meant is was that we were an oil and gas company.”

The outdoor wear company said it did not want to support the oil and gas industry in the same way as it did not support the porn industry or Big Tobacco.

Anderson was quick to call The North Face out, pointing out how essential the products of the oil industry were for their own business.

“The recreational activities they encourage are all ones that require hydrocarbons to make the products, to provide the means to get to whatever activity folks want to perform,” he said, as quoted by CBS7. “It’s just so intertwined with everything that we do.”

Anderson then went on to write a letter addressed to the chief executive of The North Face’s parent company, VF Corporation, in which he extolled all the benefits oil and gas production has generated for humankind as the main driver of the industrial revolution.

While he acknowledged climate change in his letter, Anderson downplayed the effect of CO2 on the Earth’s climate, claiming “climate catastrophists” were “terribly wrong” and misunderstood how cheap energy—the kind provided by oil and gas—could help us adjust to an ever-changing climate.

On a final note, Anderson wrote, “The irony in this statement [the refusal to make the jackets] is your jackets are made from the oil and gas products that hardworking men and women of the industry produce. I think this stance by your company is counterproductive virtue signaling, and I would appreciate you reconsidering this stance. We should be celebrating the benefits of what oil and gas do to enable the outdoors lifestyle your brands embrace. Without Oil and Gas there would be no market for nor ability to create the products your company sells.”

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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