The CEO of the oil and gas services firm Innovex slammed Colorado-based apparel firm VF Corp after being denied branded apparel from the firm’s subsidiary, North Face.
Innovex, which also operates in the DJ Basin here in Colorado, planned to purchase North Face apparel for its employees as a Christmas gift.
But North Face informed Innovex CEO Adam Anderson that oil and gas companies are no longer welcome.
“They said we don’t meet their brand criteria,” said Mr Anderson. The North Face didn’t want to be associated with certain industries and mentioned “alcohol, tobacco and porn.”
In response, Anderson published an open letter on Linkedin to Greenwood Village-based VF Corp slamming them for their discriminatory virtue signaling.
Ah yes, North Face, who is fully divested from oil and gas except for….. their supply chain, synthetic petroleum-based clothing materials, transportation, retail stores, and manufacturing.
Virtue signaling is exhausting.
Stop it.https://t.co/YERVrsU96d
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) December 12, 2020
The letter, which also outlined the positive contributions of oil and gas to modern life, quickly went viral.
“The jackets are one thing and the solution to that problem isn’t really a big deal, but I think it really hit a nerve—the idea of the population in general and even within our industry of apologizing for what oil and gas does,” Anderson said.
“What we do is good for humanity and good for the world. Like everything, there’s trade-offs. But I think somehow in the oil and gas world, we only talk about the small portion of challenges. We don’t talk about the 99% of oil and gas which is great for humanity.”
VF Corp’s foray into far-left virtue signaling is sure to please fellow anti-energy activists like Gov. Jared Polis, who coincidentally presented the company with a “corporate citizenship” award in September.