Picture a retailer that publicly encourages supporting the Black Lives Matter movement while selling T-shirts stating, “All Lives Matter.” Do consumers notice the hypocrisy?
Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB)’s Sarah Soule found not only that people notice but also that the retailer’s hypocrisy influences observers’ support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Research participants who read about the hypothetical retailer donated less to the movement and wrote shorter letters of support to policymakers compared with those who read of a similar retailer that doesn’t sell All Lives Matter shirts. Soule also found that participants who read of benefit corporations supporting Black Lives Matter were highly motivated to follow suit whether or not those companies sold All Lives Matter shirts, perhaps because individuals give more leeway to benefit corporations and are more willing to listen to them. “When you’ve got a for-profit company that’s behaving in a hypocritical way, subjects are less likely to answer its call to activism,” she said.
Courtesy of Patrick Beaudouin
Soule and 11 other academics presented at Stanford Graduate School of Business in early March to discuss their research on climate activism by individuals, institutions, and companies large and small. Presenters at the two-day conference examined what motivates climate activists and why, as well as challenges that local municipalities face in planning and implementing climate-related initiatives. About 60 researchers, scholars, and students attended the gathering, organized by the GSB’s Business, Government & Society Initiative, which supports social and environmental research, and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability (SDSS). The GSB’s Soule and the Graduate School of Education and SDSS’s Patricia Bromley organized the event.
Conference speakers noted that climate action and activism are growing increasingly complicated but were encouraged by the willingness of individuals and civil institutions to find solutions to climate issues.
Motivating Mobilization
A study by American University’s Dana Fisher found that in November 2024, support among the general public for political violence stood at 21%, with support among Democrats and left-leaning people at 17%. Those results followed a survey two months prior by independent research firm PRRI, which found that 18% of the public supported political violence and 8% of the left and Democrats did, Fisher said. And in 2025, surveys connected to the movements People’s March and Stand Up for Science both found that about a third of left-leaning respondents indicated support for political violence. These days, posts on Reddit and Twitter suggest that “people on the left are starting to use language that’s much more violent,” said Fisher. “That is not what you want to be seeing.”
People gravitate to civic involvement and activism not only through interest in a particular issue but also via a single institution where they’re members. Hahrie Han of Johns Hopkins University has found that faith institutions, especially megachurches with tens of thousands of members, serve as a major entry to civic engagement. At Ohio’s Crossroads Church, for one, members join small sub-groups built around belonging and personal relationships that encourage civic participation.
Courtesy of Patrick Beaudouin
Groups aiming to obstruct climate-change efforts, too, have mobilized in recent years, said Stanford’s Bromley. These counter climate change organizations can be difficult to identify because “obstruction” is hard to define, and many concerns about competing priorities, especially economic development, are legitimate. “You can’t walk into a room and say, ‘Will all climate deniers raise your hands?’” said Bromley.
As of 2022, a third of all countries were home to at least one group linked to the counter climate change movement, often supported by the fossil fuel industry, agriculture, think tanks, and some science organizations. The strength of a country’s environmental conviction affects the presence of counter organizations: Countries with the most robust policy commitments have a 50% chance of having one, compared with a 20% chance in areas with the weakest, Bromley added.
Company Calls
Research by Ion Bogdan Vasi of the University of Iowa analyzed corporate statements and reports and found that companies have gradually expanded their descriptions of internal climate-related activities. At least 10 years ago, companies reported on their energy consumption and specific actions such as purchasing renewable energy. Over time, they began publicizing more internal practices, such as giving incentives to energy-efficient suppliers and forming partnerships with local governments and nonprofits. Publicly discussing emissions targets and climate-related advocacy is also commonplace among companies today, Vasi noted.
Filling in the Gaps
People are often reluctant to use new technologies because they don’t know much about them. But local efforts can give them the practical information they need to use a new technology effectively, said the University of Toronto’s Fedor Dokshin. Solarize campaigns, usually led by a local government or non-profit, distribute information to residents about reliable solar panel suppliers and installers and advise them on getting the most out of their panels. Social movements like the Solarize campaign “can lend legitimacy to a new technology” in the eyes of the public, Dokshin said.
Dokshin cited a 20-week local Solarize campaign in Connecticut to encourage residents to install solar panels. Compared with people who didn’t participate in the Solarize effort, those who did installed more-efficient panels and maximized the benefits of their systems.
Cities and towns are often sorely lacking in their ability to implement climate-mitigation projects, whether a large offshore wind project or simpler neighborhood tree plantings and bike paths. In recent years, cities have begun using community benefit agreements, or legal contracts stipulating that a developer provides benefits such as a community playground, as part of negotiations to build offshore wind projects, said Hilary Boudet of Oregon State University. But municipalities need opportunities to learn how best to negotiate these agreements, which can be complicated when they incorporate public input.
Likewise, many cities adopt municipal climate action plans that, for instance, set targets for emissions reduction and goals for improving public transit. But cities frequently don’t have the resources or capacity to move beyond planning, said Jennifer Kagan of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Because they lack the ability to implement, “there’s a lot of planning for the sake of planning,” she said.
Productive Participation
Leaders in the environmental movement vary widely with context. In large environmental organizations, women’s participation in top leadership is low, noted Eric Johnson of Washington State University. Organizations headed by women tend to prioritize environmental justice and have small budgets. By contrast, entities with strong finances and fundraising are more likely to have men at the top.
In a small Mexican fishing co-operative, many members take part in its self-governance, making the co-op, and the fishing itself, sustainable. Stanford’s Xavier Basurto found that the co-op’s members design their own controls to regulate access to fishing waters and protect fish stocks from depletion. Members respect internal rules on dues, the co-op’s structure, and the sale of their catches. The community as a whole sees the fishing cooperative as both a social and economic institution that requires self-governance. “Their identity is not ‘fishing first’; it’s ‘we’re a co-operative first,’” said Basurto.
While environmental groups all want to protect the earth, their wide range of priorities, strategies, and tactics can create conflicting policy positions that threaten coalitions among them, said Juniper Katz of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The vastly different levels of financial muscle among small and large organizations may create power imbalances and disagreements when they collaborate. Some groups promote carbon capture technology; others strongly oppose it. And organizations oriented toward human welfare and justice might push, for instance, to expedite a project, while others that prioritize biodiversity might first want to make sure the project won’t impact the natural environment, noted Katz.
It’s possible that Catalyst 2030, a new initiative with thousands of participants worldwide, will unearth solutions to these so-called wicked problems, or highly complicated matters such as poverty and hunger as well as climate change, said Marc Ventresca of the University of Oxford. Catalyst 2030, founded in 2019 by a group of foundations and social entrepreneurs, convenes small groups of members to examine policies and practices needed to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the United Nations. Members of Catalyst 2030 have varying backgrounds and priorities, so they’re sure to disagree frequently. But, Ventresca said, “It is the very fact that we don’t agree that keeps us paying attention, keeps us talking, keeps us strategizing, keeps us coming back to continue those discussions.”
