Resisting corporate globalization

Divest from destructive industries.

Around the world, institutions are chasing after the highest possible monetary return on trillions of investment dollars. This means that banks, pension funds, university endowments, and state and local government portfolios are heavily invested in fossil fuel, nuclear, and military industries, as well as deforestation, land grabs, predatory lending, and other destructive activities. Doing what we can to convince governments and institutions to stop funding the destruction of the planet is an important act of resistance.

Take action

Join or start a fossil fuel divestment campaign. This interactive map by GoFossilFree.org shows where existing campaigns are underway, and describes the basic steps for starting up a campaign in your community.
Work to divest government funds from fossil fuels with the Mayors Innovation Project's guide Divestment from Fossil Fuels: A Guide for City Officials and Activists.
Join the Center for International Environmental Law's campaign to get pension funds to stop investing in fossil fuel companies.
Investments in military industries not only fuel conflict and environmental destruction, they make survival even more precarious for local cultures, communities and economies. Divest from the War Machine can connect you with existing campaigns, provide you with model city divestment resolutions, and more.
Learn which pension funds contribute to land grabs by visiting the websites of GRAIN, National Family Farm Coalition, and Farm Land Grab, and to deforestation by visiting Deforestation Free Funds. Ask your labor union or professional association to pass a resolution against land grabbing by pension funds.
Hold your pension fund responsible for unethical investments. See the TIAA (US) petition against land grabbing as an example.
Join The Next Egg (US), an online community working to shift retirement savings from global to local economies.
Make My Money Matter makes it easy to send a message to your pension provider, asking them what they are doing to help cut emissions in half this decade.

Get inspired

By the end of 2018, institutions ranging from universities and banks to sovereign wealth funds and major cities had made nearly USD 8 trillion in fossil-fuel divestment commitments.
Fossil Free California maintains a list of California cities and counties that have divested pension funds from big banks and fossil fuel companies.
In 2021, thanks to pressure from NGOs, the Norwegian Parliament adopted a new criterion to guide the investments of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global – the world's largest sovereign wealth fund. The Fund will now exclude companies that sell weapons to countries that violate international humanitarian law. Read more in this story from the German NGO Urgewald.

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Promote alternatives to GDP.

Divest from destructive industries.

Take action

Join or start a fossil fuel divestment campaign. This interactive map by GoFossilFree.org shows where existing campaigns are underway, and describes the basic steps for starting up a campaign in your community.
Work to divest government funds from fossil fuels with the Mayors Innovation Project's guide Divestment from Fossil Fuels: A Guide for City Officials and Activists.
Join the Center for International Environmental Law's campaign to get pension funds to stop investing in fossil fuel companies.
Investments in military industries not only fuel conflict and environmental destruction, they make survival even more precarious for local cultures, communities and economies. Divest from the War Machine can connect you with existing campaigns, provide you with model city divestment resolutions, and more.
Learn which pension funds contribute to land grabs by visiting the websites of GRAIN, National Family Farm Coalition, and Farm Land Grab, and to deforestation by visiting Deforestation Free Funds. Ask your labor union or professional association to pass a resolution against land grabbing by pension funds.
Hold your pension fund responsible for unethical investments. See the TIAA (US) petition against land grabbing as an example.
Join The Next Egg (US), an online community working to shift retirement savings from global to local economies.
Make My Money Matter makes it easy to send a message to your pension provider, asking them what they are doing to help cut emissions in half this decade.

Get inspired

By the end of 2018, institutions ranging from universities and banks to sovereign wealth funds and major cities had made nearly USD 8 trillion in fossil-fuel divestment commitments.
Fossil Free California maintains a list of California cities and counties that have divested pension funds from big banks and fossil fuel companies.
In 2021, thanks to pressure from NGOs, the Norwegian Parliament adopted a new criterion to guide the investments of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global – the world's largest sovereign wealth fund. The Fund will now exclude companies that sell weapons to countries that violate international humanitarian law. Read more in this story from the German NGO Urgewald.

Promote alternatives to GDP.

Countries around the world are fixated on growing their economies as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but this measure counts destruction and breakdown as positives as long as they generate economic exchange, and ignores fundamental ecological and social qualities that make life possible and meaningful. With multiple interlocking crises besetting the world, it is clear that the obsession with growth measured by GDP is little short of madness. It is time to ditch growth for growth's sake and transition to models that better reflect and promote human and ecological well-being.

Take action

Learn and share about alternative, more holistic measures of sustainable well-being that have been developed, and urge your governments - from the local to the national level - to prioritize them over GDP growth:
- The Happy Planet Index is a measure of sustainable well-being for all developed by New Economics Foundation in the UK, that shows how well nations are doing at achieving happy lives within ecological limits.
- Gross National Happiness (GNH) was developed by Bhutan in the 1970s to provide a fairer, more accurate picture of the true wealth and welfare of this small country full of biocultural wealth but typically denigrated as "poor" by GDP metrics. Learn more about GNH from the Centre for Bhutan Studies and the GNH Centre Bhutan.
- The Genuine Progress Index focuses on "full-cost accounting", comprising "tools of analysis that properly value social, economic and environmental assets" and "appraise both costs and benefits, and balance them against one another." Get in touch with GPI Atlantic for advice to communities, governments, organizations, and businesses interested in implementing a GPI.
Learn about and get involved in the degrowth movement, with its vision of radical abundance and downscaled but richer economies and lives.
Make the case for a shift away from GDP growth to well-being with your governments using the New Economics Foundation's Human Wellbeing and Priorities for Economic Policy Makers, these policy priorities from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics in the UK, these Policy and Project Screening Tools from the GNH Centre Bhutan, The Happiness Policy Handbook from the Happiness Alliance, and the Wellbeing Economic Policy Design Guide from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

Get inspired

In the article Want to avert the apocalypse? Take lessons from Costa Rica, Jason Hickel explains how Costa Rica delivers high quality of life for its citizens at a low ecological cost, regularly topping the Happy Planet Index, serving as an inspiring example for the world and turning conventional measures of "development" and "progress" on their heads.
In Don’t Laugh: The UN’s First International Happiness Day is Serious Business, Frances Moore Lappé highlights how governments around the world,from the national to the city level, are taking the critique of GDP seriously and pursuing more holistic measures of well-being.

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Policy action: Shift subsidies from global to local.

Promote alternatives to GDP.

Take action

Learn and share about alternative, more holistic measures of sustainable well-being that have been developed, and urge your governments - from the local to the national level - to prioritize them over GDP growth:
- The Happy Planet Index is a measure of sustainable well-being for all developed by New Economics Foundation in the UK, that shows how well nations are doing at achieving happy lives within ecological limits.
- Gross National Happiness (GNH) was developed by Bhutan in the 1970s to provide a fairer, more accurate picture of the true wealth and welfare of this small country full of biocultural wealth but typically denigrated as "poor" by GDP metrics. Learn more about GNH from the Centre for Bhutan Studies and the GNH Centre Bhutan.
- The Genuine Progress Index focuses on "full-cost accounting", comprising "tools of analysis that properly value social, economic and environmental assets" and "appraise both costs and benefits, and balance them against one another." Get in touch with GPI Atlantic for advice to communities, governments, organizations, and businesses interested in implementing a GPI.
Learn about and get involved in the degrowth movement, with its vision of radical abundance and downscaled but richer economies and lives.
Make the case for a shift away from GDP growth to well-being with your governments using the New Economics Foundation's Human Wellbeing and Priorities for Economic Policy Makers, these policy priorities from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics in the UK, these Policy and Project Screening Tools from the GNH Centre Bhutan, The Happiness Policy Handbook from the Happiness Alliance, and the Wellbeing Economic Policy Design Guide from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

Get inspired

In the article Want to avert the apocalypse? Take lessons from Costa Rica, Jason Hickel explains how Costa Rica delivers high quality of life for its citizens at a low ecological cost, regularly topping the Happy Planet Index, serving as an inspiring example for the world and turning conventional measures of "development" and "progress" on their heads.
In Don’t Laugh: The UN’s First International Happiness Day is Serious Business, Frances Moore Lappé highlights how governments around the world,from the national to the city level, are taking the critique of GDP seriously and pursuing more holistic measures of well-being.

Policy action: Shift subsidies from global to local.

Subsidies – government expenditures of public money in support of particular industries or businesses – play a major role in shaping our world, economically, politically and environmentally. Unfortunately, the vast majority of subsidies today serve to augment corporate power while undermining local economies, homogenizing cultures, and degrading the environment. Shifting the current subsidy regime – giving support to the small and local instead of the large and global – would go a long way towards solving our multiple crises.

Take action

Contact your political representatives, write opinion pieces and letters-to-the-editor, spread the word on social media, and talk to your friends and neighbors about the need to shift the subsidies that now support global corporations, so that they instead support place-based businesses, family farmers, and local communities.
Here are some examples of subsidies that need to be shifted:

In the US and Europe especially, agricultural subsidies go to the largest farms growing crops for export, while small producers growing for local markets get little or nothing. According to a report by the Food and Land Use Coalition, subsidies amounting to $1 million per minute globally support agribusiness practices that are destructive of the climate, wildlife and the environment. A UN report concludes that 90% of global farm subsidies damage people and planet.
In most countries, energy and technology are subsidized, while human labor is heavily taxed. The result is that robots and high technology are destroying jobs, and we use ever more energy and emit ever more greenhouse gases.
Even with the climate emergency worsening, fossil fuel companies are still being subsidized at the rate of $5 trillion per year, 6.5% of global GDP. Learn more and get involved in stopping fossil fuel subsidies with the campaign series Stop Funding Fossils by Oil Change International.
To see how the US government subsidizes fossil fuels, download this factsheet from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). And sign Friends of the Earth's petition Stop Bailing Out Big Oil to put a end to those US fossil fuel subsidies.
Most infrastructure funding represents a hidden subsidy to large export-oriented businesses, which require globe-spanning transportation and communications infrastructure. Ports and shipping terminals, airports, rail yards and multi-lane highways all provide huge benefits to global corporations, but are of much less use to local producers and marketers.
Publicly-funded research and development programs also selectively benefit huge corporations. For example, taxpayer money funded much of the research into biotechnology, which has resulted in billions of dollars in profits for pharmaceutical companies and GMO seed corporations. Shifting that funding to the needs of community-based health centers and small farmers would be hugely beneficial.
City and regional governments also heavily subsidize corporations, tilting the playing field against smaller, more place-based businesses. To see how much Wal-Mart has received from state and local governments in the US, check out the interactive map produced by Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch. Or join the effort of Good Jobs First to oppose further subsidies for Amazon, the largest online retailer in the world.
US citizens may be surprised (and disappointed) when they discover where their tax dollars are going. Read the article Biggest corporate subsidies of the last 20 years to see how much was given to the fossil fuel, automotive and biotech industries, and to corporations like Tesla, Amazon, Intel, IBM, and billionaire real estate developers.
Learn more about how government tax incentives are being used across the US to subsidize the biggest corporations, and policy efforts to end that practice with this resource – ‘Banning Public Subsidies for Big Retailers’ – from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
For local elected officials, learn how to redirect public subsidies away from big corporations and towards small, local businesses in this guide from the Institute for Local Self Reliance (scroll down to "How States and Cities Can Fight Back").

Get inspired

When internet behemoth Amazon announced that it would be looking for sites for its second US headquarters, cities and states around the country tried to outdo one another in offering the biggest tax breaks and fattest subsidies. The company eventually settled on two sites, including one in Queens, New York. But outraged Queens residents and even some political leaders protested against the proposed $3 billion handout to Amazon, as well as the impact on housing in the densely populated area. Eventually, Amazon withdrew its offer – a major victory for city residents and taxpayers. Read more about this successful struggle in this article in The Atlantic magazine.

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Policy action: Oppose "free trade" agreements.

Policy action: Shift subsidies from global to local.

Take action

In the US and Europe especially, agricultural subsidies go to the largest farms growing crops for export, while small producers growing for local markets get little or nothing. According to a report by the Food and Land Use Coalition, subsidies amounting to $1 million per minute globally support agribusiness practices that are destructive of the climate, wildlife and the environment. A UN report concludes that 90% of global farm subsidies damage people and planet.
In most countries, energy and technology are subsidized, while human labor is heavily taxed. The result is that robots and high technology are destroying jobs, and we use ever more energy and emit ever more greenhouse gases.
Even with the climate emergency worsening, fossil fuel companies are still being subsidized at the rate of $5 trillion per year, 6.5% of global GDP. Learn more and get involved in stopping fossil fuel subsidies with the campaign series Stop Funding Fossils by Oil Change International.
To see how the US government subsidizes fossil fuels, download this factsheet from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). And sign Friends of the Earth's petition Stop Bailing Out Big Oil to put a end to those US fossil fuel subsidies.
Most infrastructure funding represents a hidden subsidy to large export-oriented businesses, which require globe-spanning transportation and communications infrastructure. Ports and shipping terminals, airports, rail yards and multi-lane highways all provide huge benefits to global corporations, but are of much less use to local producers and marketers.
Publicly-funded research and development programs also selectively benefit huge corporations. For example, taxpayer money funded much of the research into biotechnology, which has resulted in billions of dollars in profits for pharmaceutical companies and GMO seed corporations. Shifting that funding to the needs of community-based health centers and small farmers would be hugely beneficial.
City and regional governments also heavily subsidize corporations, tilting the playing field against smaller, more place-based businesses. To see how much Wal-Mart has received from state and local governments in the US, check out the interactive map produced by Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch. Or join the effort of Good Jobs First to oppose further subsidies for Amazon, the largest online retailer in the world.
US citizens may be surprised (and disappointed) when they discover where their tax dollars are going. Read the article Biggest corporate subsidies of the last 20 years to see how much was given to the fossil fuel, automotive and biotech industries, and to corporations like Tesla, Amazon, Intel, IBM, and billionaire real estate developers.
Learn more about how government tax incentives are being used across the US to subsidize the biggest corporations, and policy efforts to end that practice with this resource – ‘Banning Public Subsidies for Big Retailers’ – from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
For local elected officials, learn how to redirect public subsidies away from big corporations and towards small, local businesses in this guide from the Institute for Local Self Reliance (scroll down to "How States and Cities Can Fight Back").

Get inspired

When internet behemoth Amazon announced that it would be looking for sites for its second US headquarters, cities and states around the country tried to outdo one another in offering the biggest tax breaks and fattest subsidies. The company eventually settled on two sites, including one in Queens, New York. But outraged Queens residents and even some political leaders protested against the proposed $3 billion handout to Amazon, as well as the impact on housing in the densely populated area. Eventually, Amazon withdrew its offer – a major victory for city residents and taxpayers. Read more about this successful struggle in this article in The Atlantic magazine.

Policy action: Oppose "free trade" agreements.

Free trade is shorthand for the process of removing government regulations on corporate trade and investment, thereby "freeing" global corporations and banks to do business and extract profits across borders. Free trade is powered by trade and investment treaties, institutions like the World Trade Organization, and a system of arbitration courts that effectively grant more rights to corporations than to citizens or their governments. Free trade is one of the primary drivers of corporate globalization and concentration of power, and one of the most serious threats to local democracy and local economies. To achieve resilient and just localization, we must work to scrap the free trade regime, and rewrite international rules to protect local economies, cultures, and environments.

Take action

Note: the nature of political action is fluid and dynamic, and it's necessary to seize the moment. Even if particular actions below have reached completion, please check back with the organizations to participate in their latest campaigns!

See how-to guides on holding a town hall meeting on trade issues, organizing an event about free trade, and holding your elected officials accountable with Citizen Trade Campaign's Activist Resources (US).
Sign petitions and open letters for the Stop EU-Mercosur campaign, a coalition of 450 civil society organizations opposing this treaty, which puts corporate interests above the needs of people and the planet. If approved, the agreement would exacerbate social inequalities, promote extractive, export-oriented monocultures, and undermine small farm livelihoods in South America and Europe.
In the UK, join a local group campaigning to stop free trade deals through Global Justice Now's map of local Groups.
Sign Global Justice Now's petition Stop the US Trade Deal to stop an upcoming closed-door US-UK trade deal that would lower food quality standards in the UK and open up UK public services to US corporations.
In Australia, get involved with the Australia Fair Trade and Investment Network's campaigns against the many existing and proposed free trade treaties between Australia and other countries and regions.

Get inspired

In The Defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MIA): National Movements Confront Globalism, Gordon Laxer tells the story of how an international citizen's movement defeated the MIA and thus "punctured the aura of corporate globalization as the inevitable direction of history."
The TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and other controversial EU free-trade deals were defeated by people power and activism, as described in this article by Molly Scott Cato, and this one by Nick Dearden.
International activism also defeated the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) as Arthur Stamoulis explains in this piece.
Maude Barlow describes how activism and alternative media combined to kill the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) in 2001.
Biswajit Dhar explains how a diverse movement of opposition including farmers and trade unionists forced India's withdrawal from the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership).
The video, Corporate Trade Deals: A History of Resistance, by The World Transformed, documents some of the most vibrant and successful anti-globalization movements.

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Policy action: Oppose ISDS agreements.

Policy action: Oppose "free trade" agreements.

Take action

See how-to guides on holding a town hall meeting on trade issues, organizing an event about free trade, and holding your elected officials accountable with Citizen Trade Campaign's Activist Resources (US).
Sign petitions and open letters for the Stop EU-Mercosur campaign, a coalition of 450 civil society organizations opposing this treaty, which puts corporate interests above the needs of people and the planet. If approved, the agreement would exacerbate social inequalities, promote extractive, export-oriented monocultures, and undermine small farm livelihoods in South America and Europe.
In the UK, join a local group campaigning to stop free trade deals through Global Justice Now's map of local Groups.
Sign Global Justice Now's petition Stop the US Trade Deal to stop an upcoming closed-door US-UK trade deal that would lower food quality standards in the UK and open up UK public services to US corporations.
In Australia, get involved with the Australia Fair Trade and Investment Network's campaigns against the many existing and proposed free trade treaties between Australia and other countries and regions.

Get inspired

In The Defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MIA): National Movements Confront Globalism, Gordon Laxer tells the story of how an international citizen's movement defeated the MIA and thus "punctured the aura of corporate globalization as the inevitable direction of history."
The TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and other controversial EU free-trade deals were defeated by people power and activism, as described in this article by Molly Scott Cato, and this one by Nick Dearden.
International activism also defeated the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) as Arthur Stamoulis explains in this piece.
Maude Barlow describes how activism and alternative media combined to kill the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) in 2001.
Biswajit Dhar explains how a diverse movement of opposition including farmers and trade unionists forced India's withdrawal from the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership).
The video, Corporate Trade Deals: A History of Resistance, by The World Transformed, documents some of the most vibrant and successful anti-globalization movements.

Policy action: Oppose ISDS agreements.

Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) are a global private court system where corporations can sue governments over laws or regulations that may reduce corporate profits. ISDS rulings can force governments to pay huge penalties and damages to corporations simply for having laws aimed at protecting citizens or the environment. Not only does this effectively grant corporations more rights than governments, it is an assault on local democratic decision- and rule-making, and has already had a chilling effect on the enactment of public-interest laws.

Take action

Note: the nature of political action is fluid and dynamic, so it's necessary to seize the moment. Even if particular actions below have reached completion, please check back with the organizations to participate in their latest campaigns!

Withdraw your business from companies involved in ISDS lawsuits. Find a list of disputes through the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development's database Investment Dispute Settlement Navigator. Or check out the ISDS Case Map from Bilaterals.org, with links to information about each case.
Sign petitions by local and regional organizations against corporations who have initiated ISDS lawsuits in your country.
For European organizations, join the Stop ISDS alliance of 200 European organizations, trade unions and social movements that are campaigning against ISDS, which they describe as "a parallel, one-sided and unfair justice system for corporations.”
Sign this petition by Traidcraft calling for the removal of all Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) from UK trade policies.

Get inspired

Resistance to ISDS agreements is growing:

South Africa decided that its international treaties with ISDS could undermine policies to benefit historically-disadvantaged Black South Africans after apartheid, and has begun terminating treaties that include ISDS clauses.
Indonesia plans to terminate 60 of its international treaties with ISDS clauses.
The Brazilian Congress rejected several investment treaties because they determined that ISDS does not comply with their Constitution.

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Policy action: Stop big banks from financing destruction.

Policy action: Oppose ISDS agreements.

Take action

Withdraw your business from companies involved in ISDS lawsuits. Find a list of disputes through the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development's database Investment Dispute Settlement Navigator. Or check out the ISDS Case Map from Bilaterals.org, with links to information about each case.
Sign petitions by local and regional organizations against corporations who have initiated ISDS lawsuits in your country.
For European organizations, join the Stop ISDS alliance of 200 European organizations, trade unions and social movements that are campaigning against ISDS, which they describe as "a parallel, one-sided and unfair justice system for corporations.”
Sign this petition by Traidcraft calling for the removal of all Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) from UK trade policies.

Get inspired

Resistance to ISDS agreements is growing:

South Africa decided that its international treaties with ISDS could undermine policies to benefit historically-disadvantaged Black South Africans after apartheid, and has begun terminating treaties that include ISDS clauses.
Indonesia plans to terminate 60 of its international treaties with ISDS clauses.
The Brazilian Congress rejected several investment treaties because they determined that ISDS does not comply with their Constitution.

Policy action: Stop big banks from financing destruction.

Banks are all too willing to finance projects that do irreparable damage to the natural world and human communities, so long as the financial return is high enough. It's important to shed light on those connections and oppose destructive bank lending.

Take action

Sign this letter from Rainforest Action Network to demand that the biggest banks stop financing fossil fuel development projects around the world.
Sign this petition from Amazon Watch demanding that big banks stop funding and investing in oil extraction in the Amazon.
Sign onto letters from Oil Change International to stop Japan's biggest banks from financing coal, and the European Investment Bank from funding fossil fuels.

Get inspired

Efforts by climate change activists led U.S. Bank to become the first major bank in the United States to formally exclude gas and oil pipelines from their project financing. Read about it in the post U.S. Bank to Stop Financing Pipeline Construction on Common Dreams.

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Policy action: Resist corporate power.

Policy action: Stop big banks from financing destruction.

Take action

Sign this letter from Rainforest Action Network to demand that the biggest banks stop financing fossil fuel development projects around the world.
Sign this petition from Amazon Watch demanding that big banks stop funding and investing in oil extraction in the Amazon.
Sign onto letters from Oil Change International to stop Japan's biggest banks from financing coal, and the European Investment Bank from funding fossil fuels.

Get inspired

Efforts by climate change activists led U.S. Bank to become the first major bank in the United States to formally exclude gas and oil pipelines from their project financing. Read about it in the post U.S. Bank to Stop Financing Pipeline Construction on Common Dreams.