Environmentalists emphasise that consumers have the power to make a change by boycotting high-emitting corporations, based on the economic theory that demand creates supply. This article explains how suppliers have become more in control of their demand, looking at three tactics corporations use to secure demand, not depending on consumer’s behaviour but rather by directly influencing consumers’ decision-making. It also offers suggestions for more effective individual actions to hold big polluters accountable for their environmental impact.
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Environmentalists and concerned citizens involved in the fight against climate change often emphasise that consumers can have control over polluting corporations. The idea is based on the economic demand theory that suggests that consumers determine demand, which then creates supply.
From this perspective, consumers can boycott polluters by simply choosing not to buy their products. However, in our modern societies, powerful corporations have come up with strategies to secure demand for their products by influencing or even controlling consumer’s behaviour, which makes them less susceptible to consumer boycotts.
Here are three ways in which they do it.
1. Clever Marketing Tactics
Individuals tend to overestimate their decision-making power. The reality is that humans do not have enough cognitive power to always act rationally. In fact, about 95% of the daily decisions we make are instinctive, emotionally-driven, and automatic.
To target consumers, companies hire marketing consultants, which use nudging, framing, priming, and other persuasive tactics to influence consumers’ unconscious decision-making. They sell a story or even a complete lifestyle around the product so that consumers positively associate their product with that narrative. For instance, in 1974, American fast food restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) successfully introduced the narrative in Japan that fried chicken buckets are to be eaten by families to celebrate Christmas. This quickly turned into a nationwide tradition that sees an estimated 3 to 4 million families eating KFC every year.
2. No Urgency for Companies to Make Short-Term Profits
Many multinational companies can operate for extended periods without turning a profit due to substantial investments from wealthy backers, including banks, pension funds, and governments.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on air traffic is a prime example: when individuals were not allowed to fly during the pandemic, tens of thousands of empty planes continued to fly to secure take-off and landing rights. Moreover, some governments mobilised public funds to rescue airlines that were on the brink of bankruptcy. Other notable examples of large companies that were able to continue operations during the pandemic despite little demand nor profit included Uber, Amazon, WeWork, and Airbnb.
3. Excessive Consumer Dependency
Many powerful high-emitting corporations work to ensure that consumers are completely dependent on their products. Here are five ways in which they do that.
Dominating the market, excluding alternatives
Some players in today’s market may sell their products to consumers for extremely low prices for years in order to destroy competition – leaving consumers without alternatives, and increase them only once they dominate the market. This strategy has been used by CocaCola and Nestle, both of which have been accused of buying or draining natural water wells, forcing local residents dependent on them to buy their bottled products instead.
Product Diversification
Big polluters such as the oil industry have ensured that their products are deeply ingrained in our society. By diversifying their products, oil is now used to manufacture thousands of products, from plastic, clothing, cosmetics, and machines to asphalt, electronics, medicines, and even truffle oil. This makes it near-impossible for the average consumer to live without using any oil-based products.
Planned obsolescence
Many tech-companies, such as Apple, purposefully create products with a short lifespan so that consumers have to buy more of them, a practice known as planned obsolescence.
Lobbying
High-emitting companies spend millions annually to lobby governmental institutions to secure subsidies, avoid stricter regulations, and enjoy tax benefits. At the recent UN climate summit in Dubai, COP28, a record number of lobbyists from the meat- and dairy industry was granted access.
Low Pricing Strategy
Tax benefits and subsidies allow big polluters to offer their products to consumers for incredibly low prices. In contrast, sustainable, low-emission alternatives are often too expensive for the majority of people, even in high-income countries. As a result, making sustainable, ethical decisions is often not 5 Ways to Spot Sustainable Suppliers and Manufacturerssomething everyone can afford.
Holding Polluters Accountable
These modern-day economic strategies show the futility of consumer’s power and how the idea that consumers are in control of demand is no longer applicable in today’s economy.
By using one, or a combination of these tactics to limit consumers’ decision-making freedom, high-emitting companies have been able to secure demand and increase their profits. This means that it will cost consumers considerable cognitive willpower, financial freedom, and time to be able to boycott their products and find more sustainable alternatives. In some countries, alternatives are simply not available.
If concerned individuals want to make a significant change in light of global warming, they might be more effective if they focus on supporting judicial, political, or media efforts that investigate, protest, or campaign against high-emitting corporations, since such institutions have more power to push for systemic, large-scale changes, such as imposing binding environmental laws or stopping subsidies for high-emitters.
Examples of successful individual environmental actions include the 2019 Urgenda court case against the Dutch government for the lack of action to stop global warming, a 2021 court case in the Netherlands against oil company Shell for their contribution to global warming, and the 2020 investigation by NPR and Frontline that sparked an ongoing lawsuit in the US against fossil fuel giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Dow, and Dupont for their plastic recycling misinformation campaign. Or the six adolescents in the EU who recently took legal action against 32 countries at the European court of human rights for their failure to adequately address climate change.
While consumer boycotts might be less effective in today’s economy, these court cases and investigations demonstrate the potential for holding powerful high-emitters accountable and compel governments to take binding measures to mitigate emissions. It just takes one determined individual to start such powerful initiatives.
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