{"id":3978,"date":"2025-06-02T23:09:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T23:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/?p=3978"},"modified":"2025-06-02T23:33:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T23:33:43","slug":"understanding-consumer-boycotts-what-are-the-motivations-and-strategies-for-advancing-climate-justice-through-collective-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/?p=3978","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Consumer Boycotts: What are the motivations and strategies for advancing Climate Justice through collective action?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat we are what we have \u2026 is perhaps the most basic and powerful fact of consumer behaviour\u201d [1]. \u201cPerhaps we boycott because we are also what we do not have\u201d [2].<\/em><\/h4>\n

A boycott is defined as \u201ca concerted, nonmandatory, refusal by a group of actors to conduct transactions with a certain target to communicate displeasure with its policies and coerce it to modify them” [3].<\/p>\n

In the context of climate action, boycotts have emerged as a means of fighting big fossil fuel companies and holding them accountable for their disproportionate contributions to climate change. There has been a particular surge in campaigns for banks and insurance companies to divest in fossil fuel, such as Stop the Money Pipeline, Insure Our Future and Unfriend Coal [4].<\/p>\n

Although boycotts have the objective of achieving a collective goal, they represent a social dilemma, where the consumer must choose between the individual satisfaction of consumption and the desire to contribute to the shared benefits of a successful boycott [5]. Under this dilemma, boycotts can be effective or ineffective depending on the level of participation that they attract [3].<\/p>\n

Boycott participation can be explained as a cost-reward model where, first, there must be an initial trigger [2], an offending event by the target company that evokes a negative emotion (anger, frustration, anxiety, etc.) in the consumer and sparks willingness to boycott [6] (for example, the exposure of a company’s environmentally harmful practices or investments in fossil fuels). After experiencing the negative emotions, the consumer ponders the costs and benefits of boycotting, which can be categorized as [2]:<\/p>\n