Yvon Chouinard’s passions for fishing, hunting and natural resource conservation have made his name synonymous with sustainability and innovation.

Yvon Chouinard is one of the great rebels of our time. He’s forged his own path in business and life – much in the same way he forged his own pitons and reinvented the world of mountaineering back in the 1960s and ’70s. Since then, he’s built a remarkably successful and responsible company in Patagonia, makers of truly exceptional outdoor gear. And today, as a vibrant, active 81-year-old, Chouinard continues to push himself, his company and the entire outdoor industry to do more and do better.

As co-founder of 1% For the Planet, Chouinard is once again putting his principles where his wallet is.

“One Percent for the Planet is about trying to encourage other companies to dig into their pockets—especially companies in the outdoor industry,” he says in his typically blunt-yet-cheerful way. “I believe in taxation to the point where I believe in taxing myself. That’s what this one percent is.

“And it shouldn’t be looked at as philanthropy,” he continues, “because that one percent is based on sales, not profits. So whether you’re profitable or not you have to give one percent. That puts it in a different category. Vie cause a lot of damage being in business. All of us. And we should do our part to make it right.”

Chouinard puts the same philosophy to work with Patagonia’s global sourcing and manufacturing practices.

“At Patagonia, we try to be more responsible, so we follow our resource trail all the way to the very end. We’re constantly asking questions about what we’re doing, how it’s affecting the local environment, and if we find something wrong, we fix it.

“Let’s say you’re sourcing cotton for some T-shirts. Well, it takes water to grow the cotton you need to make ’em. We ask: where is the water coming from? Does it come from fossil wells with water that’s millions of years old? Does it come from a dam? Or does the cotton come from a place where it rains and the crops are watered in a more natural way?

“We can’t just buy organically grown cotton and say that’s good enough. We have to know where it comes from and how it came to be. We have to be able to say to ourselves—and our customers—this is the most responsible product that we can make.”

Chouinard’s deep roots in the outdoors began in Maine as the son of a French-Canadian handyman. But when the family moved to Southern California in his early youth, Chouinard never lost his love of the outdoors.

“Instead of going to the prom,” he recalls wryly, “I was probably down on the LA River gigging frogs. I started fishing in my early youth, and I’ve had a life in the outdoors ever since.”

One small part of his life outdoors takes place on the award-winning Buccaneers & Bones on the Outdoor Channel as a part of an all-star cast of famous fishermen, including Tom Brokaw, Tom McGuane, Lefty Kreh, Michael Keaton, Huey Lewis and Bill Klyn. They get together each year to ply the waters of the Caribbean, but mostly to enjoy each other’s company and to help an upstart conservation group called the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust that is conducting amazing research on these flats species.

“Brokaw and McGuane are two of my real close friends, and it’s probably the only chance we have to get together. And will Lefty and Bill Klyn along too, it’s a wonderful opportunity to be with great friends and fishermen. It gives us an excuse to be together. If we tried to do it on our own, it would never happen.”

Never one to rest on his laurels—or anything else—Chouinard still hunts small game, fishes religiously and surfs like the salty dog he is. He’s also the author of a new book on fishing.

“It’s called Simple Fly Fishing, and it’s about Tenkara—which is all about simplicity. I’ve gone back to fishing from my youth. We used to go to the general store and buy a bamboo pole. They called ’em Calcuttas, and we would tie a line on the end and just go fishing. Well, that’s what I’m doing today with Tenkara. I started doing it as a novelty but I’ve discovered that it’s the most effective way to fly fish. With any sport, the more you perfect it, the simpler it should become. That’s what Tenkara is. Simple.”

Chouinard’s first book, Let My People Go Surfing, is more popular today than it was when he wrote it for his Patagonia employees two decades ago.

“It took me fifteen years to write it because we were developing the philosophy of the company at the same time. It’s been translated into nineteen languages and is very popular with the younger crowd because it’s about starting from scratch and building the philosophy of a company based on your values in life.”

And while fishing with Chouinard in Belize and listening to his philosophies on life and business, I called him the world’s oldest millennial given that his views align perfectly with that generation. And he burst into laughter and thanked me for the compliment. Living your values is what Yvon Chouinard is really all about and his lifelong pursuit of his own passions has made his name synonymous with sustainability and innovation.

”I’m an innovator not an inventor,” he says. “That’s what I did with climbing gear. When I started climbing, all the equipment was pretty crude. There was a lot of room to improve and that’s what I do. Any product I come across I say to myself, ‘I can make this better. ‘” In business—and in life—that’s exactly what he’s done. Everything is better because of Yvon Chouinard.