The outdoor industry has an inclusivity and diversity problem. Spend any time on a hiking trail, rock climbing crag or downhill ski resort, and you’ll see predominantly white faces. Attend an industry trade show, visit a brand headquarters, or stop by a local gear shop and you’ll see the same thing. This is not exactly breaking news, and yet we’ve struggled to make a lot of progress as an industry.
Part of the challenge is that companies in our industry have treated inclusivity and diversity as purely social issues, taking actions because “it’s the right thing to do” or because they want to be seen to take action to placate customers and employees. But by labeling something as a social issue, it falls outside the core running of the business and so becomes performative almost by definition.
The reality is that lack of outdoor inclusivity and diversity is a business issue. According to the Brookings Institution, today a majority of Americans under 18 are people of color, and by 2045 a majority of all Americans will be people of color.
If the outdoor industry doesn’t get on the right side of these trends, our industry’s customer base will just get older and smaller. Diversity in the workplace matters, too: A 2023 study by McKinsey showed that businesses in the top quartile of ethnic representation are 39% more likely to financially outperform businesses in the bottom quartile.
The lack of diversity in outdoor participation and within our industry are inextricably linked. People who love the outdoors are drawn to want to work in the industry, and outdoor employers want to hire people who know and love the outdoor activities that they rely upon for their business. For this reason, we must start by tackling the participation problem, which will lead to more diverse hiring, which will lead to more inclusive participation.
So how do we drive more inclusive and diverse participation in outdoor activities? Many brands have started by having more people of color in their marketing images. This is a good first step that costs nothing but is hollow if that’s the brand’s only tangible action. Instead, it will take local, grassroots initiatives to get people from under-represented groups exposed to outdoor activities from an early age. The good news is that numerous grassroots organizations exist across our country with those exact goals. The bad news is that these organizations struggle to obtain the ongoing funding needed to perform their necessary work. Even when outdoor brands engage with a grassroots organization, it is typically a one-off event that ends up being very transactional. The brand provides funds or free gear and in return gets to post about this “partnership” on social channels.
We need an industrywide approach to tackle this industrywide issue.
That’s why I worked with Teresa Baker, Josie Norris, and representatives of leading brands and industry organizations to create the Outdoor Diversity Alliance (ODA), which we launched in October 2023. We looked to The Conservation Alliance as our model. It’s an industry coalition of 258 companies that has awarded over $33.5 million in grants to protect and conserve the outdoors over the last 35 years. If our industry brought the same level of commitment and collective action to inclusivity, think of all the grassroots initiatives we could support to increase outdoor diversity and ultimately grow our businesses?
So how is ODA doing after 15 months? Leading industry organizations have stepped up, including Protect Our Winters (POW), the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), Snowsports Industry Association (SIA), The Outdoor Foundation, and The Futurist Project. Leading retailers have joined, including REI, Public Lands, and Decathlon. Service providers like Tread Creative and iSP Advisors have joined. Brand members include BOA, Burton, Keen, Nemo Equipment, On, Peak Design, Smartwool… and that’s it – seven brands out of the hundreds in our industry.
Why have so few brands joined? It’s likely a combination of factors.
Many outdoor brands are struggling financially, so maybe they feel they can’t afford a few thousand dollars to join ODA. I’d argue they can’t afford not to join if they value long-term viability. Other outdoor brands fear the current backlash against DEI, but they don’t realize that the loudest anti-DEI voices are the least likely to be their core customers and key employees.
Of course, many brands may not even know that ODA exists. To those brands, consider this your invitation: join up, take action, and ensure the long-term health of our industry.
Visit OutdoorDiversityAlliance.org for more information on membership.