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Shopping has become a political act. Here’s how it happened.

Consumer activism and conscious consumerism mean more people are buying from brands they agree with — and boycotting ones they don’t.

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In August, it was SoulCycle and Equinox . The month prior, Home Depot . Back in 2017, L.L.Bean . These are only a few of the companies to ignite the collective ire of progressive consumers over corporate ties to Trump. In the case of the boutique fitness studios, it was a Trump fundraiser hosted by their majority stake investor Stephen M. Ross; with the home improvement chain, it was co-founder Bernie Marcus’s promise to donate to Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign; with the duck boot and outdoor apparel brand, it was Bean descendant and board member Linda Lorraine Bean’s $60,000 donation to Trump super PAC Making America Great Again, LLC (itself a violation of the Federal Election Commission’s permitted donor limit of $5,000).

For Americans opposed to Trump’s policies — from the inhumane treatment and targeting of detained migrants , to detrimental inaction on climate change , to refusal to regulate guns in the wake of unprecedented mass shootings — shopping at retailers connected to the celebrity-entrepreneur-turned-sitting-president is tantamount to hypocrisy.

Calls to boycott Trump-tainted brands stretch back to the #GrabYourWallet movement that began in the wake of the 2016 election. Organizers Shannon Coulter and Sue Atencio turned outrage into action with a spreadsheet of companies linked to Trump or the Trump family, both explicitly (Trump owned) and implicitly (Trump funders, Trump brand sellers), detailing why those companies are on the list and what they need to do to get off it. “The goal,” Coulter told the New York Times , “came originally from a place of really wanting to shop the stores we loved again with a clear conscience.”

Of course, boycott calls are not unique to Trump’s critics; Trump himself is an avid boycotter , and his MAGA fans follow suit . Nor are boycott calls unique in the Trump era. Consumers have long registered their disapproval of businesses’ practices by refusing to shop them and calling on others to do the same, dating back to this country’s birth (and further back elsewhere in the world, like in ancient Greece and early Christianity, in the form of organized ostracism).

What do you get when consumers takes action? Consumer activism. And by the inverse action, consumers are shopping alternative products and companies that complement their worldview more now than ever before — particularly when it comes to combating climate change. Sustainability-tinged consumer activism is a new flavor of an old tactic, one that falls under the umbrella of what we now call conscious consumerism.

Consumer activism can take the shape of two diametrically opposed actions — buying en masse and boycotting en masse — that are after the same goal

“[Consumer activism is] either grassroots collective organization of consumption or its withdrawal,” explains Lawrence Glickman, an American historian at Cornell University and author of Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism .

Meaning, it’s “Buy Nike!” to express support of Colin Kaepernick’s 2018 pick as brand ambassador following his kneeled protest against police brutality targeting people of color and his collusion lawsuit against the NFL . It’s also, “ Boycott Nike !” and even, “ #BurnYourNikes !” to express outrage over “when somebody disrespects our flag,” as Trump put it in 2017, supposedly provoked by Kaepernick’s peaceful demonstration.

View this post on Instagram @adamcalhoun1 is the man. He’s not afraid to be blunt and show his patriotism and show what a real man is in this world full of pussified people. We need more of this. #fucknike #dontsupportnike #boycottnike #nikeboycott #fuckthenfl #patriot #patriots #adamcalhoun #acal #crazywhiteboy #crazywhiteboytour #wesupportlawenforcement #wesupportthepolice #blueline #supporttheblue #rhec #rhecnation #rednecknation #rednecks A post shared by Oldschoolrooster (@oldschoolrooster) on Aug 12, 2019 at 7:55am PDT

Calls to boycott, though, are a heck of a lot more visible on social media than are rally cries to pledge brand support. Glickman writes in Buying Power that two-thirds of Americans take part in at least one boycott a year.

Boycotts stem from anger. Anger spreads faster and farther on social media than any other emotion, as uncovered by computer scientists at China’s Beihang University and reported by MIT Technology Review . And there are many, many ongoing and overlapping boycotts at any given time. AP News even has a feed to track boycotts worldwide.

Consumer activism, boycotts included, puts power in the hands of the people — ”or at least they think it is,” adds Glickman.

We boycotted before there was even a word for it

“Boycotts are as American as apple pie,” #GrabYourWallet co-founder and digital strategist Coulter told Fast Company in 2017, referring to the Boston Tea Party’s 1773 dump of British imports that precipitated the American Revolutionary War. Colonists had boycotted British tea for several years by then; “No taxation without representation,” they demanded. Refusing to purchase British tea was a pointed way to voice their mounting resentment of their decidedly un-independent status. Short of revolt, it was the only power they had — until, of course, they revolted.

Glickman dates the boycott much further back: to ancient Greece. Expedition Magazine cites the city of Athens’ historic boycott of the Olympic Games in 332 BCE as a key turning point. The city had incurred a massive fine after its endorsed athlete attempted, and failed, to fix a match, and refused to attend the games in protest unless the charges were dropped. (They weren’t, and Athens eventually relented.)

The term “boycott” didn’t emerge, however, until 1880, in Ireland. Captain Charles Boycott was a British land agent in County Mayo — and “ the man who became a verb! ” — whose evictions “were many and bloody,” as described by IrishCentral. After Boycott attempted to evict another 11 tenants, the Land League (an Irish political organization of the 1800s that rallied in aid of poor farmworkers) convinced Boycott’s employees to walk out and compelled the community to, essentially, ice him out. Shops and the like refused to do business with him, the post stopped his mail. He left Ireland humiliated.

Boycotts are employed the world over, and not all of them are about consumerism. Just last month, tens of thousands of students in Hong Kong boycotted the first day of school as part of ongoing protests over an extradition bill that could send Hong Kong citizens to China, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a boycott of the Israeli TV channel that co-produced the HBO show Our Boys , and Sweden’s top female hockey players are boycotting the national team over unfair pay and poor working conditions.

Still, there is a certain Americanness to the ubiquity of the boycott today. Take #GrabYourWallet, which at present calls for boycotts of 31 different companies (not including subsidiaries or partners), five over their Stephen M. Ross connections. Says Glickman, Americans “didn’t invent [the boycott], but the frequency with which we use it is somewhat exceptional.”

Consumer activism in 2019 is not a whole lot different from consumer activism in the 1840s — except when it comes to the causes

“A lot of people think that what we’re seeing now is new,” says Glickman. “But there are a lot of parallels with history.” Particularly, America’s history of slavery and abolitionism.

The Free Produce Movement, led by Quaker abolitionists in the 1840s through the Civil War, hinged on boycotting goods made by enslaved people, cotton key among them. Buying these products, as far as Free Produce stalwarts were concerned, was analogous to supporting slavery outright.

The issues are different today, but the strategy remains the same: Vote with your dollar and don’t contribute a cent to the bottom line of companies whose values don’t align with your own. Says Glickman, “That fundamental question of, ‘No one stands outside of moral problems, that we’re all implicated in [them]’ — that’s the essence of consumer activism.”

Voting with your dollar doesn’t just mean not spending your dollars in problematic places (i.e. Amazon , Wayfair , etc.); it also means supporting companies that practice what they preach, both by way of their company culture and by what they sell. Conscious consumerism drives at that very point, particularly when it comes to “voting” for sustainability and humane working conditions.

Says the Nation’s Willy Blackmore of the boycott’s antebellum lineage, where abolitionists bought wool over cotton and maple sugar over cane:

The same thinking—that it’s better to buy products that we believe are made without exceptional suffering—animates some contemporary conscious consumerism. The desire to minimize the harm we cause as consumers has led to a variety of fluffy marketing terms as well as third-party verification organizations, so you can buy everything from cruelty-free makeup to Fair Trade food products.

Conscious consumerism (alternatively called ethical consumption) is today’s catchall to cover consumer dollars invested in a host of progressive values: worker rights, animal rights, low-carbon footprint, recycled and/or renewable materials, organic, local, etc. — your fair-trade fashion, your greenhouse-gas-cutting Ikea , your metal straw. It’s a term that’s caught on in the last 10 years, but it was not only predated by the green consumerism of the 1990s , it’s also the driving argument behind all consumer activism from the tea-in-the-harbor get-go.

What is newish, however, is the phenomenon of sustainable shopping and widespread availability of ethically made, eco-friendly goods — where consumers concerned about climate change, for instance, “live their values” vis a vis their plastic-free purchases.

“It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when we saw consumers trying to make positive environmental change in their shopping,” says Emily Huddart Kennedy, University of British Columbia sociologist and author of Putting Sustainability into Practice: Applications and Advances in Research on Sustainable Consumption. Data analytics company Nielsen called 2018 “The Year of the Influential Sustainable Consumer,” adding that “it’s soon to be the decade of the sustainable shopper.” Sustainable product sales reached $128.5 billion in 2018, up 20 percent from four years prior; Nielsen projects 2021 to cash in on $150 billion worth of sustainability sales.

There are several theories, says Kennedy, on what caused the shift, including mistrust in government to adequately address climate change and the growing “sense of doing something in the face of these huge sustainability crises,” as she puts it. Kennedy’s research has shown that conscious consumerism’s popularity can also be tied to its elite nature — in part because of high price tags, in part because of championing among celebrities, in part because of its en vogueiness, “it’s seen as a ‘high-class’ thing to do.”

Consuming consciously is aspirational, both for individuals and for the planet. University of Toronto sociologist Josée Johnston, a colleague of Kennedy’s, found that nearly two-thirds of consumers resonated with the statement, “shopping is a powerful force for social and environmental change.” Elaborates Johnston’s survey report in the Journal of Marketing Management , “This suggests that the majority of the shopping public believe that their shopping dollars can promote a social and environmental alternative to the status quo.”

Consumer activism, for all its prevalence, might be an unintentional misdirect, say critics

Activists for any one particular cause are in no way united that consumer activism is the most effective way — or even an effective way — to enact change. The main criticism is that individual product swaps do nothing to impact legislation and corporate responsibility.

That’s not a new argument; many abolitionists disagreed with their Free Produce Movement cohorts. As Glickman writes in Buying Power , “Critics accused free produce activists of overvaluing private rectitude to the point where it had little connection with the public good.” Maybe wearing wool and eating maple makes you abolitionists feel better, Free Produce critics seemed to say, but it does squat to end slavery.

Twenty-first century shoppers face, in spirit, the same conundrum.

“Conscious consumerism is a lie,” writes sustainable fashion expert and frequent Vox contributor Alden Wicker for Quartz , quoting a speech she delivered at the 2017 UN Youth Delegation. “Small steps taken by thoughtful consumers — to recycle, to eat locally, to buy a blouse made of organic cotton instead of polyester — will not change the world.” Instead, she argues, conscious consumerism is an expensive distraction from the real work at hand.

Sure, vote with your dollar, the criticism stands — but you do a whole lot more by simply voting for politicians who give a damn that the Earth is melting . Only 46.1 percent of voters aged 18-29 voted at all in 2016, 55 percent of which voted Democrat . Nielsen found that 90 percent of millennials (aged 21-34) are willing to pay more for eco-friendly and sustainable products. These stats don’t necessarily provide a one-for-one since there’s a gap in the age categorizations, but if the entirety of that 90 percent of conscious consumer millennials had gone to the polls and voted how their dollar votes ... We don’t have to spell it out, right?

With more opportunities to be a conscious consumer — thanks to more and more “leading brands that compete to see who is greener,” as Joel Makower, author of 1990’s The Green Consumer, writes for GreenBiz — so too do opportunities for economic existential angst mount. Ditching plastic straws, in the grand scheme of things, will do diddly for the planet, representing less than 1 percent of our sweeping plastic problem.

And as such, conscious consumerism can deliver unearned complacency, house-on-fire calm akin to “This Is Fine” dog . As Jim Leape, co-director of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions told Stanford Report , “The risk is that banning straws may confer ‘moral license’ — allowing companies and their customers to feel they have done their part. The crucial challenge is to ensure that these bans are just a first step.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren homed in on this very point during CNN’s recent climate change forum, following a series of questions to Democratic candidates on regulating lightbulbs, banning plastic straws, and encouraging people to cut down on red meat, as reported by Vox’s Li Zhou :

“Oh, come on, give me a break,” Warren said in response to the lightbulb question, in one of the breakout moments of the night. “This is exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants us to talk about. ... They want to be able to stir up a lot of controversy around your lightbulbs, around your straws, and around your cheeseburgers, when 70 percent of the pollution, of the carbon that we’re throwing into the air, comes from three industries.”

There’s an added tension when it comes to green shopping and movements like Fridays for Future and the Sunrise Movement , that conscious consumerism’s prescribed solution is antithetical to sustainability’s aims.

“The idea of ‘shopping’ your way to sustainability is fundamentally flawed,” says sociologist Kennedy. “That is, if we need to slow down growth to protect the environment, then we can’t rely on ‘better’ consumption — we also have to reduce consumption.” To her point, climate activist Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN’s Climate Action Summit on September 23 addressed world leaders but zeroed in on an oft-repeated delusion that cutting emissions by 50 percent in 10 years will do the trick. “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you.”

There are alternative ways that consumers can “do something” impactful with their money, writes Wicker in Quartz: Donating to activist organizations and donating to politicians who vow to vote for green initiatives (i.e. passing a Green New Deal ) and holding big corporate offenders accountable are good places to start.

Okay, okay, but does consumer activism do … anything?

In a word: sometimes! In more words, whether or not consumer activism and conscious consumerism “work” depends, really, on the definition of success.

Historian Glickman likes to differentiate between short-term and long-term goals. Sociologist Kennedy separates material benefits from ideological gains.

“Almost every boycott fails to achieve its punitive goal,” says Glickman. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, he adds, is a rare example of an “unambiguous victory,” where the boycott attained its demands : hiring black drivers, promising respectful drivers, and first-come first-seated policy. The SoulCycle boycott is another: Last month’s consumer activism over Ross’s Trump fundraiser did in fact dent SoulCycle’s attendance . But these are notable exceptions (the former inarguably more impactful than the latter) to the rule.

Adds Glickman, “A lot of times boycotts of big corporations don’t really affect the bottom line of that corporation. Oftentimes the boycott starts with a great deal of enthusiasm and ends with a whimper.” For instance, Amazon: Despite calls year after year to boycott Amazon Prime Day over factory conditions (and this year over contracts with ICE ), the retail behemoth repeatedly manages to smash its sales record .

In terms of the material benefit of product swaps, “the jury is out,” says Kennedy. Yes, phosphate-free dish detergent can curb water pollution, she says; but Kennedy’s research shows that conscious consumers often maintain very large carbon footprints themselves. “Conscious consumers tend to be well-educated,” explains Kennedy, “and well-educated people typically earn a good income,” income that buys them nice cars and tickets on commercial planes and air conditioning units and so on.

“The ideological benefits are not much more conclusive, unfortunately,” adds Kennedy. “I think it’s fair to say that conscious consumption has made more people think about the resources that go into the stuff we buy and about what happens to our stuff when we throw it away.” This, in effect, is consumer activism’s long-term goal, what historian Glickman calls “a transformation of consciousness.” On the other hand, Kennedy says, “When people obsess about the environmental impact of their goods, that can let companies and governments off the hook. So it’s a mixed bag.”

Where and how we spend our money does matter. But how much it matters depends on what else we do with our money and what governments and corporations do with their (considerably larger) pots. At best, the rising popularity of conscious consumerism, for instance, suggests that the buying public will at least spend their way to a healthier world; the big problem, though, is that individual monetary action — even when performed collectively — is only the beginning.

“I can’t imagine that the world is worse off because of conscious consumerism,” says Kennedy, “but I doubt it will be enough to save the planet.”

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Empowering Ethical Consumer Activism: A Transformation in Contemporary Society

Table of contents, consumer activism in contemporary society.

• McGregor, S. (2016). "Consumer Activism and the Struggle for Ethical Consumption." Journal of Consumer Culture, 16(1), 273-289.
• Holzer, B., Benoit, S., & Stoll, T. (2010). "The Ethical Consumerism Questionnaire: Scale Development and Validation." Journal of Business Ethics, 91(4), 551-573.
• Kumar, V. (2015). "Consumer Behavior and Product Choice: An Empirical Analysis." Journal of Consumer Research, 42(1), 24-34.
• Beinare, I., & McCarthy, L. (2011). "The Influence of Civil Society Organizations on EU Policy-Making: Perspectives from Environmental NGOs." Environmental Politics, 20(2), 252-270.
• Edwards, M. (2000). "NGOs in the New Millennium: Engaging with the Third Sector." Development in Practice, 10(1), 114-125.
• Crane, A. (2001). "Unpacking the Ethical Product." Journal of Business Ethics, 30(4), 361-373.
• Horst, M. (2018). "Consumer Activism: The Impact of Digital Communication on Consumer Activism and its Outcomes." Journal of Consumer Affairs, 52(2), 348-367.
• Lewis, D., & Kanji, N. (2009). "Non-Governmental Organizations and Development." Routledge.
• Fraustino, J. D., & Kennedy, M. S. (2018). "#DeleteUber: Celebrity Activism in the Age of Social Media." Social Media + Society, 4(1), 1-9.
• Spar, D. L., & La Mure, L. T. (2003). "The Power of Activism: Assessing the Impact of NGOs on Global Business." California Management Review, 45(3), 78-101.

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Home / Consumer Activism on Global Warming, September 2021

Report · Dec 16, 2021

Consumer activism on global warming, september 2021, by anthony leiserowitz , edward maibach , seth rosenthal , john kotcher , liz neyens , jennifer carman , jennifer marlon , karine lacroix and matthew goldberg, filed under: behaviors & actions.

• Report Summary

Our latest national survey finds that millions of Americans are willing to “vote with their dollars” to reward companies taking climate action and punish companies blocking action. But the primary barrier holding consumers back is simply knowing which companies to reward or punish.

This report is based on findings from a nationally representative survey –  Climate Change in the American Mind  – conducted by the  Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (climatecommunication.yale.edu ) and the  George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication (climatechangecommunication.org ). Interview dates: September 10 – 20, 2021. Interviews: 1,006 Adults (18+). Average margin of error +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• 1. Individual Consumer Actions
• 2. Consumers' Collective Efficacy
• 3. Consumers' Expectations for Industries and Companies
• Appendix I: Data Tables
• Appendix II: Survey Method
• Appendix III: Sample Demographics

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Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Rosenthal, S., Kotcher, J., Neyens, L., Carman, J., Marlon, J., Lacroix, K., & Goldberg, M. (2021). Consumer Activism on Global Warming, September 2021 . Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Funding Sources

The research was funded by the 11th Hour Project, the Energy Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Grantham Foundation.

Climate Change in the American Mind

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Conscious Consumerism: What Is It? Where Did It Come From?

Conscious consumerism — sometimes called ethical consumerism, conscientious consumerism or green consumerism — is shopping in ways you believe make a positive social, environmental or economic impact.

What Is Conscious Consumerism?

Conscious consumerism involves making more thoughtful shopping decisions, often with the goal of consuming less and prioritizing sustainability. It can take the form of supporting companies that follow higher ethical standards, purchasing more durable products and buying fair trade goods.

Conscious consumers look beyond a product’s immediate features and “vote with their dollars,” said Ela Veresiu, associate professor of  marketing at York University Schulich School of Business.

“A socially or environmentally conscious consumer will first think whether consumption is even necessary,” Veresiu told Built In. “And once they decide to buy, they do their homework and look at who is providing the product or service that they would like to purchase, and how the product or service impacts the environment and society through its design, delivery and even discard.” 

Conscious consumerism approaches shopping as a practice charged with weighty ethical and political implications . It takes the form of buying — or boycotting — certain brands based on your beliefs, principles and awareness of how such purchases may affect the wider world.

Conscious consumerism manifests in many ways, like:

• Shopping for green cleaning products and fair-trade coffee.
• Opting for a small electric vehicle instead of a gas-guzzling truck.
• Boycotting  fast-fashion brands or  companies that treat workers unfairly .
• Purchasing books from  Black-owned retailers instead of from Amazon.
• Buying from brands that openly support LGBTQ+ initiatives .  

Recent examples of conscious consumerism have had less to do with product performance and have had more to do with support of different social causes , according to Remi Trudel, associate professor of marketing at Boston University.

In other words, conscious consumers rarely avoid a product these days on the basis of its packaging’s recyclability. But they will boycott brands because they don’t  support Black Lives Matter or  align themselves with LGBTQ+ causes , for instance.

Trudel says that’s mostly because doing things like using recyclable packaging and keeping obviously harmful chemicals out of your product has simply become the cost of doing business these days. But it’s also partly because consumers — of younger generations in particular — expect brands to have skin in the game.

“It’s table stakes for brands to say that they have a cause mission,” Karen Goldfeder, VP of business development at DoSomething , a global nonprofit that focuses on mobilizing young people to make social change,  previously told Built In . “It’s now required to say how you are going to show up at this really pivotal moment in history and show what your brand stands for, where you’ll compromise and where you won’t.”

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer and the resulting nationwide protests,  Gushers tweeted this from its corporate account:

“Gushers wouldn’t be Gushers without the Black community and your voices. We’re working with @fruitbythefoot on creating space to amplify that. We see you. We stand with you.”

Such a gesture from a fruit snack brand would be unheard of 10 years ago. Not anymore, in this era of ethical consumerism.

Conscious Consumerism History

Conscious consumerism can be traced all the way back to the free produce movement of the 1820s. Led by Quaker and free Black abolitionists, the free produce movement encouraged people to buy products not made with slave labor. They even organized “free produce” stores, making it easier for fellow consumers to shop for the alternative.

“These early consumer activists understood consumer power as inevitably a moral and ethical force, since in this worldview consumers were responsible for the far-reaching impact of their actions,” Lawrence Glickman, Cornell University American Studies professor, writes in his book Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America . “They often used the metaphor of a chain to refer to the binding relationships which linked individual consumers to producers of the goods they bought as well as other consumers.”

For the decades following, conscious consumerism flared up on occasion, until it found a renewed energy in the 1990s that has lasted since.

Glickman attributes its recent sticking power partly to the proliferation of grassroots periodicals, which sought to keep the historical memory of boycotts and consumer activism alive. Another factor is that, as we approached the turn of the millennium, consumers simply stopped having faith in government regulation to bend the market in an ethical direction.

It was around this time, in the mid-to-late 1990s, that various conscious consumer movements — like fair-trade and slow food — began to pop up and gain traction.

In the past decade or so, conscious consumerism’s rise has gone hand in hand with the prevalence of  natural disasters and  activism movements — the visibility of which have been amplified by social media and news coverage, elevating them from local news events into widespread cultural concerns, Veresiu said.

Various cultural flashpoints contribute to a growing understanding that some systemic problems are the sum of everyday individual actions, which has caused people to discern their own impact. In response to this shift in consumer sentiment, some brands are increasingly  willing to share their labor and sourcing data — either as a way to differentiate themselves in a fragmented marketplace, or because social media has made it difficult to hide bad practices. In either case, consumer demand for this transparency has surged. 

Conscious Consumerism Benefits

The benefits of being a conscious consumer include:

• Reducing your individual impact on the environment and curbing your contribution to waste .
• Putting pressure on brands that use unsavory business practices so they change their ways.
• Supporting communities or groups that have historically faced economic disadvantages due to structural inequities.

For brands, the benefit of appealing to conscious consumers is twofold:

• It typically means you are a socially responsible company and positively impact the environment or society, whether in the form of reducing your organization’s carbon footprint or donating profits to charitable causes, for example. 
• It often adds esteem to your brand, bolstering  brand equity and  differentiating your brand in the marketplace over time.

That said, in trying to cater to an audience of conscious consumers, brands run the risk of putting their foot in their mouth if they don’t back up their claims with real action.

“Brands are increasingly — or should increasingly be — conscious of the worst-case scenario today, which is to be labeled and perceived by the general public or a mass group of consumers or potential consumers as  greenwashing or woke-washing,” Veresiu said.

As Harvard Business Review  noted , several companies have been publicly called out for woke-washing by current and former employees, who complained that “corporate statements of solidarity glossed over internal inequities.”

“It’s no longer enough just to have marketing material that speaks to a cause,” Veresiu said. “You need to back it up with your internal affairs.”

Related Reading What Is Green Computing?

Conscious Consumerism Impact

Does shopping for certain products or avoiding certain brands help bring about a cleaner environment , or a more just and equitable society? Or does it just allow people to feel better about themselves and make brands get more clever about their messaging?

“There’s a lot more pressure on individuals to become conscious, and to think about what they purchase,” Veresiu said. “But much more needs to be done by governments and corporations around the world to ensure a safe and prosperous planet for all of us.”

A series of experiments recorded in The Myth of the Ethical Consumer show that many consumers who claim to want ethical products are indifferent when actually given the choice to buy them. Even when it means passing over an ethical product for an unsavory alternative, people don’t want to sacrifice the quality and functionality of what they buy, despite reporting that ethics are important to them.

“It seems,” the book’s authors wrote, “that survey radicals turn into economic conservatives at the checkout.”

Even so, Trudel said, the gap between the profession of conscious consumerism and the practice of it still signals that ethical consumption is a socially desirable behavior. And people tend to behave in ways that society values — when those actions are within reach.

So if it becomes easier and more affordable for a person to be a conscious consumer — or if social nudges are calibrated to make ethical consumption a more realistic option and less of an aspirational one — the gap between saying you’re a conscious consumer and being a conscious consumer will inevitably shrink. Broader policies and initiatives can accelerate this process, but individual change can at least spark conversations around conscious consumerism and begin building momentum for larger movements to take hold. 

According to Veresiu, “Conscious consumerism is a good starting point for individuals to start taking action and start thinking about how their individual behavior impacts larger communities, social groups, the planet, the environment.”

How to Be a More Conscious Consumer 

For those looking to contribute to positive social change through their shopping habits, here are a few ways to become a more conscious consumer:  

• Consume less: Limit your spending to only necessary purchases, so you don’t contribute to waste by buying things you don’t need. 
• Take care of goods: Find ways to extend the shelf life of the goods you already own. If possible, repair or fix your goods rather than buying new products immediately.   
• Purchase high-quality products: Invest in high-quality products over cheaper, low-quality ones. Greater durability can offset any initial costs.  
• Research companies: Look up companies to see whether they follow ethical business practices , avoiding ones that use questionable or exploitative methods. 
• Uplift social issues: Buy from companies that support the same social issues you care about, whether it be protecting workers’ rights or fighting for racial equity .    
• Buy reused goods: Purchase goods that are secondhand or upcycled to give products a new home and reduce the amount of surplus goods in circulation .

Frequently Asked Questions

What is conscious consumerism.

Conscious consumerism is the practice of making informed purchasing decisions to ensure one’s shopping habits can have a positive social impact. As a result, conscious consumers often buy only what they need and emphasize sustainability when they do make purchases.

Why is conscious consumerism important?

Conscious consumerism can help individual consumers develop more sustainable habits, put pressure on companies to follow ethical business practices and support communities that have been historically marginalized and exploited.

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Consumer Activism for Social Change

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Elizabeth Bradford Lightfoot, Consumer Activism for Social Change, Social Work , Volume 64, Issue 4, October 2019, Pages 301–309, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swz035

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Consumer activism , or activism taken by consumers through participating in the market such as through boycotts or ethical shopping, is the most common form of political action in the United States aside from voting. Although consumer activism was a popular macro practice social work intervention by social work pioneers and has been an important part of many social change movements internationally, it is rarely discussed formally in the field of social work in the United States today. This article provides an overview of consumer activism as a social work intervention, describes historical and 21st century examples of consumer activism, and discusses the effectiveness of consumer activism. The article ends with a discussion of the strengths and challenges of consumer activism for social workers who engage in it either professionally or personally.

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Consumer Activism for Social Change

• PMID: 31560773
• DOI: 10.1093/sw/swz035

Consumer activism, or activism taken by consumers through participating in the market such as through boycotts or ethical shopping, is the most common form of political action in the United States aside from voting. Although consumer activism was a popular macro practice social work intervention by social work pioneers and has been an important part of many social change movements internationally, it is rarely discussed formally in the field of social work in the United States today. This article provides an overview of consumer activism as a social work intervention, describes historical and 21st century examples of consumer activism, and discusses the effectiveness of consumer activism. The article ends with a discussion of the strengths and challenges of consumer activism for social workers who engage in it either professionally or personally.

Keywords: buycotts; macro practice; protests; social action.

© 2019 National Association of Social Workers.

Publication types

• Consumer Advocacy*
• Consumer Behavior
• Political Activism*
• Social Change*
• United States

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Essay: Fairtrade, Sustainability, Consumer Activism, Greenwashing (reflective)

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Class #1 January 8, 2019

Topic – Introduction to Fair Trade and Ethical Consumption. (Source- Instructor’s presentation in class)

• Description of the Topics: The class started with very interesting topic on “Fair Trade”. After Professor Miskiman explained some things about Fair trade what I extracted from it was that fair trade is eliminating the distributors and selling directly to the consumer. In my opinion, I had very less knowledge about it but have heard of this term several times. Basically, it is a trade that takes place in developed nations and producers are paid a fair price. • My Thoughts: As lecture moved on I started grasping much about fair trade and ethical consumption. After listening to the point of view of each individual I got an idea about this term. The Fair trade coffee example was really interesting given by one of our peers. Now, everything started making a little bit sense. Definition given by our professor created a picture in my mind about how things work in fair trade. My opinion on fair trade is that its final goal should to uphold the conditions of the producers in the under developed countries and a fair price should be paid to producers in order to let them ear some profit, cover their expenses and costs and live a quality life. So, Fair trade practice should create long lasting relationship that can help benefit both the partiers (win-win situation). The statement that was made in class by professor that fair trade should be based on transparency, dialog and respect that provides greater equity at international level ( instructor’s presentation) was really interesting and I agree with this statement fair trade creates opportunities for better and fairer world and increase quality of life whereas in free trade multinational corporation are earning huge profits in the name of free trade. According to me, fair trade creates sustainable environment which means it can meet people needs today without hurting the needs of people in future and basically it means to build strong economies. Fair trade creates better prices and reasonable working conditions and fair terms for farmers and workers. Moreover, Fair trade support and help small-scale farmers and workers who are treated unfairly in a variety of ways. Professor showed us a logo for fair trade mark which has been seen at coffee shops by many of our peers is most widely known and trusted ethical label in the world. I believe that it is a logo which can been seen on those products that meet the international fair trade standards. It explains that product has been certified to offer better deals to farmer and workers those are involved in production. Reference What is Fairtrade? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://fairtrade.ca/en-CA/What-is-Fairtrade

Class #2 January 15, 2019

Topic- The Realms Of Sustainability- Regeneration (Source- Instructors Presentation)

• Description of the Topic- About Realms of sustainability we discussed about the role of plane, people, ethics and economics as how they are interdependent on each other and how they impact sustainability of our environment • My Thoughts- In my opinion, sustainability development is kind of development in which need of the present are met without compromising the needs for the future generation. This definition explains that we need to look after our planet, and most importantly use our resources economically to make sure that we all live in sustainable environment and so our future generation could also live quality life. I feel that sustainability draws on politics, economics and , philosophy and other social sciences. When I hear the term sustainability I tend to think of renewable fuel sources, reducing carbon emissions, protecting environments and a way of keeping the delicate ecosystem of our planet in balance. So basically sustainability looks to protect our natural environment, ecological health, human and not compromising our way of life. These days many current practices are damaging the planet’s ecosystem. By 2050 an estimated additional 2 billion people will be living on Earth. This means food production must rise by 60%.(fao.org, 2015). In some manner that Diesel gate scandal of Volkswagen Auto group also impacted with our planet’s sustainability as it showed device emitted less emissions but in reality it did not meet the standards of US emissions norms. According to me, in the next 10-15 years, we will see an acceleration of advancements in technology, energy, computing, transportation, housing, agriculture, infrastructure, medicine, material sciences, education. Sustainability should not be only concern for the environmentalists but is it should a planetary goal in order to create a liveable future. References Brown, M. (2017, September 01). Mapping The Near Future: How To Build A Sustainable Planet. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallbrown/2017/09/01/mapping-the-near-future-how-to-build-a-sustainable-planet/#5157735a2269

Class #3 January 22, 2019

Topic- Consumer Activism

• Description of the Topic- It is basically the practice undertaken on the behalf of consumers in order to assert consumer rights. I believe that group of people or NGO’s make demands or state their views about a particular cause linked directly or indirectly to a company. Maybe to boycott a certain brand or product. • My Thoughts: These days consumers are getting smarter and wants to know how a brand produces and deliver its goods and who they align themselves with need to be clear and considered consumers to stay loyal to their brand and brand values. I was reading a blog by Emma Ferris where she gave example of consumer activism currently playing out in America. It is against one of the most over powerful brand of the country i.e. The National Rifle Association in terms to the latest tragic mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school in Florida (Ferris, 2018). I believe that people are right and have done “March for our lives” movement with surviving teenage students to have a powerful medium for consumer protest. I feel that this campaign is something to be focus on gun control policies in states to prevent it from happening. A new survey finds that 83 percent of consumer activists in the US and UK agree it is more important than ever to show support for companies that do the right thing by buying from them.(Shandwick, 2018) I believe people of US and UK want to show support for a company’s action b intentionally buying its brand , product or services and formed a new term “BUYcotting” which they think is more effective than Boycotting. I believe there is being a transformation in consumer activism as BUYcotters have taken more supportive purchase actions on average in the past two years than boycotters have taken in opposition.( Shandwick, 2018). Consumer these days are becoming smarter and wants to know whether the brand that they are loyal to is worth it? I feel that gun laws at States should have been controlled way before which would have save those innocent victims. References Consumer activism; a powerful vehicle for change. (2018, March 04). Retrieved from http://www.trulydeeply.com.au/2018/03/defining-brand-values-rise-consumer-activism/

Class #4 January 29, 2019

Topic- Playing Fair- The story of Fair Trade Footballs ( In class video)

• Description of the Topic-In this video there is a place in Sialkot in northern Pakistan where the production of soccer balls takes place. Moving on, stitchers and workers tell that how their life have been impacted over there in working in those factories and what difference fair trade has made to their lives. • My Thoughts- Football is a lovely sport and watched and played by millions but as I heard about fair trade in terms of football I was clueless while I was hearing and watching the video professor showed us. So, many people who produce things that we enjoy and consumer aren’t paid fairly for their work and effort and so here comes the fair trade to prevent it. I agree to this statement as the one’s who are producing things like crop, cocoa, sugar, coffee, teas or anything as there are 4500 products( Fairtrade Foundation, 2016) that carry fair trade logo these days that make us feel happy and provide us energy deserves to live a quality life as well. They should be paid fairly in order to feed for their family and provide education to themselves as well as their children and most importantly paying for medication. In the video it was shown the manufacturing of football and how each worker does his work professionally in order to meet the standard for a quality football and also the demand as it increases from 40 million football to 60 million in world cup years ( Fair Trade foundation , 2016). I feel that these workers work really hard for the manufacturing of footballs and and they deserve to be paid fairly as Pakistan’s economy is currently going through patch (Mohsin, 2018). After hearing that 5 year olds were working and stitching footballs in order to earn money and some of them were forced to work which made me feel bad. So, agreement was signed against child labour which only helped those 5 year old children to work but financial problems were still arising. In my opinion it is very wrong to let those children suffer instead they want to go to schools to have education. I felt really good when fair trade helped those workers by providing them with clean water to prevent diseases and transportation facility. Fair trade has done a lot of good to the workers at Sialkot and helped their children to go to schools. Foundation, F. (2016, June 10). Playing Fair – The story of Fairtrade footballs. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTrFOLLvlGs&t=60s

Class #5 February 5, 2019

Topic- Greenwashing and 6 Sins (Instructor Slides and in class notes)

• Description of the Topic- Topic that was discussed in the second half of our class was about greenwashing and was really interesting and Later on the six sins of greenwashing were also new information me to me and I am grateful to have knowledge about it. • My Thoughts: I believe that greenwashing is the practice of making a misleading claim about the environmental benefits of a particular product, technology, service or any company practice. So, what is really does it shows a company more environmental friendly than it really is. Maybe it is done because of the competitive advantage or differentiating the products from its competitors or maybe promising efficient use of power or more cost-effective over time. There can be couple of reason why company choose to opt this direction. I feel company do this to attract customers attention on green manufacturing, recycling or energy-saving benefits. Moving on, There are six sins of greenwashing which were discussed in class and I found that information new to me and was really worth knowing. Talking about the first sin “SIN OF THE HIDDEN PROOF” is a claim that suggest that the product provided by company is green based on narrow set of attributes without giving importance or paying attention to other environmental issues. I feel that such claims are not usually false but create a misleading picture of the product without grounds of being it environment friendly. This was the most frequently committed “sin,” made by 57% of all environmental claims examined (Makower, 2007). Moving further, other sin is “SIN OF NO PROOF” explains any claim that providing some information that should have some proper grounds from a reliable source but in reality there is no such evidence to support that information for example if you are in the business of light bulbs and you are saying that your products are more energy-efficient than any of the competitors without offering any evidence or grounds to that. Talking about another sin i.e. “SIN OF VAGUENESS” is claim of which meaning is not clear or poorly defined and likely is misunderstood by the customer for example as discussed in class about All-Natural consist of mercury, uranium and many other poisonous substances but name suggest something else i.e. Green which it isn’t in reality. Furthermore, the fourth sin is “SIN OF IRRELEVANCE” is an environmental claim that is truth but is really not important or unhelpful for consumers for example CFC- free products are not useful anymore as ozone-depletion chlorofluorocarbons have been outlawed since the late 1980s. (theozonehole, 2016). The fifth sin is “SIN OF LESSER OF TWO EVILS” is claim that may be true but the risk of distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as whole for example organic tobacco or green insecticides. These types of claims are very rare and less than 1% of all claims are examined. Finally, the last sin is “SIN OF FIBBING” in which claims are simply false and are misrepresented certification by an independent authority but in reality no such certification has been made. This sin is also rare and consumer today are very aware of certain issues like this. These sins really made me interested to know more about it as what we are said about a company is not true whereas they use something harmful substances. These sins are very important to be known by the public to prevent scams and clearly check the product details before buying for example If you buy the product of All-natural and it creates a picture in your mind that they use natural substances to make the product but in reality this is not the truth. References The Sins of Greenwashing: Home and Family Edition. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://sinsofgreenwashing.com

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Ross Douthat

The ‘Blood Bath’ Battle and the Electric Car War

By Ross Douthat

Opinion Columnist

If you believe President Biden’s aides and allies, he intends to fight the 2024 election primarily on the threat that Donald Trump poses to American democracy. In their view, this worked in 2020, when Biden promised to protect the “soul of the nation” from Trump’s depredations, and again in the 2022 midterms, when Biden made the threat to democracy his closing argument and Democrats then overperformed. So there’s no reason it can’t work just one more time.

By the time November rolls around, Biden’s longtime adviser Mike Donilon told The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos recently, “the focus will become overwhelming on democracy. I think the biggest images in people’s minds are going to be of Jan. 6.”

I have been unsure how seriously we should take this kind of talk. Biden’s argument about democratic norms did seem to pay off in some key races in 2022, but I’m less convinced that it made the difference in 2020, at least relative to Biden’s promise to be a steady hand and his reputation for ideological moderation. And either way, 2024 is a different context still, in which Biden appears to be struggling most with disaffected working-class voters , a constituency that you would expect to respond more strongly to material appeals than to high-minded arguments about civics.

To the extent that the White House knows this, we should probably take quotes like Donilon’s with a grain of salt. Maybe he was just dispatched to manage Biden’s liberal base, to preach the gospel of anti-Trumpism to a liberal publication’s readers while someone else gets to work on the more traditional economic appeals to swing voters.

But the past week has given us a good illustration of what it would look like if the White House fully believed in Donilon’s argument, and regarded its invocations of Jan. 6 as a potent alternative to the usual forms of outreach and moderation.

First you had the zeal with which the president’s campaign latched onto Trump’s comments, at an Ohio rally, about the “ blood bath ” that would supposedly follow Biden’s re-election. In context, the term “blood bath” definitely referred to a predicted collapse of the U.S. auto industry if Biden gets another term, and arguably predicted some form of general chaos or disaster. But it was immediately elevated and interpreted by Biden (or his social media ghostwriter) as proof that Trump “ wants another Jan. 6 .”

Then, just as the great “blood bath” debate began dying down, Biden’s E.P.A. announced sweeping new emissions rules intended to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, taking their sales from around 8 percent of the U.S. market today to 56 percent in 2032.

These rules have been in the works for some time, and from the point of view of climate activists and internal Democratic Party politics, their substance represents a political compromise, wherein the biggest shift is pushed off by a few years and hybrids as well as fully-electric cars count toward the target.

From the point of view of swing-voter outreach in a presidential election year, however, the new rules seem like a pretty reckless bet. Explicitly seeking the rapid disappearance of the kinds of automobiles used by the vast majority of Americans would be politically fraught under any circumstances. It’s even more fraught in an election where states like Michigan hold the key to an Electoral College victory.

And it is especially fraught at a time when higher interest rates have made automobile loans more expensive for the American consumer — who is in effect now being told by an unpopular incumbent president: “If you like your car, I don’t want you to keep it.”

To summarize: First, Trump made an apocalyptic statement about the effects of Biden’s policies on the auto industry. Then the Biden team eagerly overhyped that statement as proof of Trump’s unfitness. Then the Biden administration rolled out a plan to radically transform the auto industry, which even if it worked as intended would, as a newsroom colleague reported, “require enormous changes in manufacturing, infrastructure, technology, labor, global trade and consumer habits.”

In other words, the Biden camp elevated Trump’s rant against their car-industry policies and then set up the ripest possible policy target for his next round of attacks.

This is probably just an instance of an administration’s political arm and its policy shop operating without any especially savvy coordination. But it’s a good case study of how a “Jan. 6 trumps everything” theory of 2024 could go badly wrong — by encouraging a fatal insouciance about the material concerns of working-class Americans on the theory that any Trumpian attempt to exploit those concerns can be pre-emptively defused by casting the former president as a fascist.

The path to a Biden victory involves making the case against Trump on anti-authoritarian grounds and material grounds at the same time. Whereas imagining that the anti-authoritarian card is powerful enough to let you get away with unpopular liberal activism on other issues seems like the likeliest path to a Biden defeat.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , X and Threads .

Ross Douthat has been an Opinion columnist for The Times since 2009. He is the author, most recently, of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery.” @ DouthatNYT • Facebook

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