CODEPINK, the US women's anti-war movement, has launched the 'Stolen Beauty' campaign targeting Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories for its involvement in the occupied territories.

Regular bi-weekly protests in London have resulted in the flagship Ahava store losing it's lease. A number of small independent stores have dropped Ahava from inventory – among them the gift shop at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.and the U.N. Commissary in Vienna. In 2009, the organisation pressured Oxfam into suspending actress and Ahava spokes model Kristen Davis from publicity work as an Oxfam Goodwill Ambassador in 2009 for the duration of her contract with Ahava.

Ahava's labeling practices have been scrutinised by officials in England, the Netherlands, France, and most recently in South Africa, and more than 10,000 people have pledged to boycott the company. Read more about the Israel boycott here.

Air France is the only major airline that continues to ship monkeys to laboratories for experimentation. Primates transported by Air France are frequently taken from the wild and were transported on journeys that could last for more than 30 hours.

According to PETA:

Primates in laboratories were routinely mutilated, poisoned, deprived of food and water, forcibly immobilized in restraint devices, infected with painful and deadly diseases, and psychologically tormented...Primates suffer from the long and gruelling transport in the cargo holds of planes and in the backs of trucks. 

It was reported that 90 percent of drugs tested on animals failed in human trials, making primate transportation for experimentation unnecessarily cruel. Due to Consumer pressure, other major airlines, including United, Air China, Delta, and American have reportedly stopped transporting primates for use in experiments. PETA was urging consumers to boycott Air France until the company also changes its policy on transporting primates.

We have called a boycott of Amazon over its outrageous tax avoidance.

In 2017, Amazon’s UK tax bill has fallen to just £4.6 million, despite pre-tax profits in the country almost tripling to £72.3 million. Amazon has also been ordered by the EU to repay £222 million to Luxembourg after the country allowed it illegal state aid that meant that it paid four times less tax than local rivals.

More recently, the company opened a bidding war for its second head quarters in North America, which encouraged companies to offer tax breaks as an incentive to bring business there. 73 civic leaders wrote to Amazon asking that it voluntarily pays a fair share of tax in whatever city it eventually chooses:

You have your list of things you’re looking for from cities – but we live in these cities, and we’ve got some expectations of our own for Amazon. What you’re looking for will impact every part of our cities. We built these cities, and we want to make sure they remain ours.

Athena, a new alliance of organisations based in the US, is campaigning against Amazon. The coalition brings together activists, advocates, policy experts and academics along with organisations representing workers, small business owners, people of colour, immigrants, and local people.

It states that it is

“coming together to create an economy where everyone can thrive, defend our climate, safeguard our communities from surveillance, and expand our democracy.”

The coalition is demanding the right to:

• Govern their own communities, by tackling Amazon’s sweetheart tax deals and draining of public resources.
• Put their health before the bottom line by ending Amazon’s reliance on, and profit from, the oil and gas industries fuelling pollution and the climate crisis.
• Shield their economies so they can thrive without Amazon’s control.
• Protect people from Amazon’s dangerous surveillance that tracks and mines personal data for profit and fuels the harmful and discriminatory policing of immigrants and communities of colour.

Its formation in November follows growing criticism of Amazon over recent years.

Ongoing opposition

The new year has seen ongoing opposition to the multinational in the US, where the company is based. In January Seattle City Council passed a bill restricting corporate donations in local elections after Amazon, which has its headquarters in the city, donated more than $1.5 million during the previous election. Along with several other large corporations, Amazon sought to oust candidates who had supported plans for a new tax on the company in 2018, revenues from which were earmarked for affordable housing and homelessness services.

At the end of January, more than 350 Amazon employees spoke out against the conglomerate’s environmental policies.

The workers broke the company’s communications policy, which restricts them from publicly commenting on its business, in solidarity with colleagues who had been warned they could be fired for speaking out against its climate practices. Workers had initially criticised Amazon for pursuing deals with the oil and gas industry and providing services to companies like BP and Shell.

Amelia GrahamMcCann, Senior Business Analyst for the company commented,

“It is unconscionable for Amazon to continue helping the oil and gas industry extract fossil fuels, while trying to silence employees who speak out.”

Now Athena says that it is coming together “to stop Amazon’s injustices”.

Ethical Consumer continues to call a boycott of Amazon for its aggressive tax avoidance practices.

Unilever subsidiary Ben & Jerry's has been added to the list of companies boycotted by the BDS movement. The call comes from the brand's long-standing contractual relationship with an Israeli franchise that manufactures ice cream in Israel and sells it in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Read more about the Israel boycott here.

The Organic Consumers Association has also called for a boycott of the brand over its use of ingredients grown with pesticides. In July 2017, OCA reported that 10 out of 11 samples of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream tested positive for glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, and/or AMPA, glyphosate’s main metabolite. In October, OCA reported that samples of Ben & Jerry’s in four European countries also tested positive for glyphosate residues.

The campaign states that the use of pesticides poses a threat to water sources worldwide, and Ronnie Cummins its international leader stated:

Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company, Unilever, spend millions on marketing to create the false image that the Vermont-based brand is a champion of the environment, when in fact Ben & Jerry’s supports an industrial dairy system that is responsible for a water pollution crisis in Vermont.

According to Greenpeace, Bluefin tuna is an endangered species and could soon be extinct. Populations have reduced by over 80% since industrial fishing began. Despite this it is still being served in sushi restaurants in the UK.

The longlines, gillnets and purse seines are also damaging ecosystems and catching sea turtles, seabirds and marine mammals, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Center has launched the Bluefin Tuna Brigade, a campaign that is asking consumers to take a boycott pledge. 30,000 people have already signed up, stating that they will not eat bluefin tuna and will boycott any company that serves it, along with a growing number of restaurants. In the UK this includes Yo! Sushi.

Survival International has called a travel boycott of Botswana due to the treatment of indigenous Bushmen communities. 

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana was created to protect the traditional territory of 5,000 Gana, Gwi and Tsila Bushment, we well as the game they depend on. But in the early 1980s diamonds were found in the reserve. Since then, virtually all the Bushmen living there have been forced out, in three big clearances that took place in 1997, 2002 and 2005. Their homes were dismantled, their school and health post were closed, their water supply was destroyed and the people were threatened and trucked away.

Bushmen have twice successfully appealed their eviction in court. The judges described the Bushmen’s plight as ‘a harrowing story of human suffering and despair.’ But the Botswannan government has tried to make their return to the reseve impossible according to the campaign, including by cementing over the Bushmen's only water borehole.

The company has come in for a boycott call thanks to one of the worst environmental disasters ever to befall the United states, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The industrial disaster began in April 2010, when an undersea BP oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers. For the next 87 days, millions of gallons of oil spilled from the ocean floor at 5,000 ft beneath the ocean surface.

In 2014, a US judge ruled BP was "grossly negligent" in the lead-up to the oil spill. The judge said BP should shoulder 67% of the blame for the 2010 spill, with drilling rig owner Transocean responsible for 30% and cement firm Halliburton responsible for 3%. BP also received criticism in the aftermath of the spill for focusing on damage control rather than the clean-up effort.

The boycott has over 660,000 likes on Facebook. 'BP brands to boycott include Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, Wild Bean Cafe.'

In December 2015, The Sunday Times, The Guardian and Financial Times reported that Mondelez UK, the parent company of Quaker-founded, Birmingham based confectioners Cadbury, paid no corporation tax in 2014-15 in the UK, despite making profits in the country of £96.5m in that financial year. In 2017, the Daily Mail reported that Cadbury had not paid any corporation tax for the sixth successive year.

The Methodist Tax Justice Network is calling a boycott of the company: 

until we see evidence that Cadbury are paying tax commensurate with their sales in all countries in which they operate, we will refuse to buy from a company who avoid making their appropriate contributions to wider society.

The campaign also asks followers to write to the company, explaining why they are avoiding its products.

Organisers of the Canadian boycott say that the farmed salmon industry is posing a massive risk to the environment surrounding the fisheries. The campaign website says that the intensive livestock sea-based enclosures can contain up to a million fish. These fish are fed colourants to turn their grey flesh pink and given antibiotics and de-lousing drugs to fight disease and parasites.

With no barriers around farms to protect the surrounding area, pollution and water-borne diseases contaminate the ocean environment. In addition, disposal of manure is non-existent and it simply pours into coastal fishing grounds.

The campaign also says that farmed salmon has brought few jobs to the area, compared to its huge profits, and that the salmon produced has a much higher fat content than wild salmon.

BDS and War on Want have called for a boycott of Caterpillar for selling bulldozers to Israel in full knowledge that they will be armoured and used to destroy Palestinian homes, infrastructure and agriculture in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. '“Without selling a single bomb, gun or F16 fighter, Caterpillar has been supplying the Israeli military with its “key weapon”, in the words one Israeli commander', according to an article on the Electronic Intifada website.

D-9 bulldozers have been used to destroy “agricultural farms, greenhouses, ancient olive groves.. numerous Palestinian homes and sometimes human lives”, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

The boycott campaign has seen several major success, including the Church of England's decision to divest its £2.2 million holding in Caterpillar. Read more about the boycott here.

Colombia Solidarity Campaign and the Killer Coke Campaign called boycotts of the company, following claims that it had been involved in the murders of union leaders at its factories in South America, and in other instances of violence, intimidation and workers' rights abuses. 

Coca-Cola was accused of paying Colombian paramilitaries who murdered nine union members at its bottling plants. The Killer Coke Campaign website also lists reports of the company ordering serious anti-union violence at Turkish and Guatemalan plants.

The BDS Movement also includes Coca-Cola in its boycott guide. The Israeli company that has held the Coca Cola franchise in Israel since 1967, the Central Bottling Company (CBC), has a regional distribution centre in an industrial zone in the Israeli settlement of Atarot which it operates through its subsidiary the Central Company for Sales and Distribution. Read more about the BDS boycott here.

Residents of Mexicali in Mexico have called for a boycott of Constellation brands after the company took control of the areas water supply. Constellation plans to build a new beer factory in the region which will drain 7-15 million cubic litres of water every year – or 3-6% of the area’s current usage. The factory will produce Grupo Modelo beer, which will be largely exported to the US. 

Mexicali Resiste, the group behind the boycott, says that the company’s access to this water is a result of corruption. The company originally planned to lease water from wells owned by the director of the Department of Economics, according to the campaigners. After protests forced a change of plan, the company was offered a drinking water line from federal property.

Jesus Galaz, spokesman for the Mexicali Resiste stated,

If companies can operate everywhere they want because of free trade, then we will also be international activists.

Read our interview with Jesus Galaz about Mexicali Resiste, the campaign behind the boycott call.

PETA are calling on Channel 4 to stop airing Crufts. The BBC dropped the show after relevations about ill, inbred animals, and the RSPCA refuses to attend it. The culture of breeding has serious health implications for the dogs involved on the show. PETA claims:

With its obsession with "purity of breed", Crufts popularises grossly exaggerated features in animals and awards prizes to dogs whose physical abnormalities make it impossible for them to lead a happy life – pugs with pushed-in faces who can barely breathe, Cavalier King Charles spaniels whose brains are too big for their skulls and bulldogs who can't even mate without assistance, to name just a few examples.

The campaign says that this culture of breeding also have wider implication for canine welfare, pointing out that breeders may receive thousand of pounds for pedigree puppies with a low quality of life, while many healthy dogs remain in animal shelters. 

It is asking its supporters to contact Channel 4 and ask it to stop airing the show.

Dog4Us is a puppy warehouse located in Leeds and Manchester. Organisers based their campaign on information exposed by BBC Panorama, such a selling fake Pedigri pups and seriously ill dogs, buying from cruel puppy farms and selling untraceable dogs from unlicensed breeders.

The campaign points out that Dog4Us breaks government advice to never buy a puppy unless you see it with its mother. It asks its followers to adopt a puppy instead, from the many currently housed in animal shelters.

The boycott has held protests outside parliament calling for a ban on the sale of puppies in pet shops and other third-party dealers. It has gained backing from many politicians in both Manchester and Leeds.

Naturewatch Foundation launched a boycott call against Ecover in April 2018, over the brand's links to companies that test products on animals. In December 2017, Ecover and its sister company Method were purchased by SC Johnson, a US company that openly admits to testing on animals and owns other non Naturewatch-endorsed household cleaning brands such as Duck, Shout, Glade, Pledge and Windex.

Caroline Ruane, Naturewatch Foundation CEO, said:

It's hugely disappointing to compassionate shoppers when favourite brands compromise their cruelty free credentials by selling out to multinationals that continue to benefit from animal testing. We sincerely hope that Ecover and Method will stand up for animals by using their new position of influence to convince SC Johnson that the way ahead is cruelty free.

Until then, Naturewatch is asking compassionate consumers to boycott all SC Johnson brands, including Ecover and Method, until the entire company is cruelty-free. Supporters can take action, and contact the company, here. Read more about the boycott.

Kick Nuclear have called a boycott of EDF for its involvement in the planned building of a new generation of nuclear power stations across the UK. The first of these, two nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset, gained government approval in September 2016. The project has been heavily criticised for organisations such as Greenpeace. Its executive director John Sauven said:

Even if EDF manages to get the technology to work, the UK will pay the price by saddling themselves until 2060 with an out of date, flawed and expensive technology.

Switch off EDF are also campaigning for people to swtich to greener alternatives, and are currently paying users to do so.The campaign describes Hinkley Point as "not safe, not affordable, not necessary" and calls on the government "to encourage a renewable energy future in Britain instead – solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydro and biogas, coupled with national energy-saving measures." EDF already owns 65 nuclear reactors in the UK and France. 

Academics are boycotting Elsevier's journals due to the "exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions to individuals"

in the light of these high prices, the only realistic option for many libraries is to agree to buy very large bundles, which will include many journals that those libraries do not actually want. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting the fact that some of their journals are essential.

The campaign also criticises Elsevier's support for measures such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), PIPA, and previously for the US Research Works Act, which it says are an attempt "restrict the free exchange of information". It points out that those acting as academic referees and sitting on the editorial board for this kind of journal do so free of charge, thereby providing volunteer labour, and that much research is partially funded by external institutions.

Over 17,000 academics have currently pledged to boycott the company.

CCTHITA (Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska) have called for a boycott of FedEx for as long as they continue to sponsor the Washington Redskins - who bear a racially offensive name. The term “redskins” is derived from a horrific former practice of removing the skin of Native people for the purpose of collecting bounties.

Over 100 professional organizations representing civil rights, educational, athletic, and scientific experts have also recognised that the use of Native American names and / or symbols by sports teams promotes misunderstanding and perpetuates negative stereotypes.

Boycott FedEx also launched a boycott call against the company in December 2015, due to its links with the National Rifle Association. The boycott gained momentum following the NRA's comments following a shooting at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, in which 17 pupils died. The NRA continued to oppose gun controls and criticised Parkland Student Campaigners. FedEx continued to offer a 26% discount for NRA Business Aliance members.

PETA called for a boycott against Fortnum and Mason for selling foie gras. The luxury food is made from the liver of geese or ducks that have been specially fattened. This is done through force-feeding, using a feeding tube to give the bird corn. Ducks have to be force-fed twice and geese between three or four times a day. Their livers swell up to ten time their normal size, which means that they press against the birds' lungs, causing difficulty breathing.

In 2012, PETA UK did an undercover investigation into the Sarlat Perigord cooperative, from which Fortnum & Mason's distributor sources foie gras. It says:

These intelligent, gentle birds are condemned to spend the last weeks of their life in small, barren pens, where they are forced to stand 24 hours a day on metal grating as their urine and faeces build up underneath. The geese panic and struggle as they are roughly grabbed by the throat and a metal pipe is forced down their throats so that huge amounts of grain can be pumped into their stomachs.

The International Campaign for the Rohingya (IRC) has called for a boycott of Kirin Group over its links with the military in Myanmar (Burma). IRC says the company is “legitimizing the military and providing them with profits as they face accusations of genocide in the UN’s top court.”

Kirin Group is a Japanese conglomerate, specialising in food, drink and healthcare products. It operates a brewery company as a joint venture with the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, a company controlled by, and for the benefit of, the Burmese military, which carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya in 2017.

The Japanese multinational also admitted that its subsidiary made donations totalling USD $30,000 to the military and authorities during the ethnic cleansing. The first donation was made to the military’s Commander-in-Chief during a televised ceremony, in which he said it would be used in part to fund “security personnel and state service personnel”.

Seema Joshi, Head of Business and Human Rights at Amnesty International stated,

“It beggars belief that any international investor would make donations to Myanmar’s military, at a time when those very forces were carrying out ethnic cleansing.”

Kirin owns Fourpure Brewing Company in the UK, as well as a 24% stake in Brooklyn Breweries, owner of Brooklyn Lager. Its Kirin Ichiban beers are also sold in the UK.

The company appears on the Burma Campaign’s ‘Dirty List’, which names international corporations doing business with the military or involved in projects linked to human rights violations or environmental destruction in the country. Apple, Google, Facebook, Huawei and Toshiba also feature on the list.

PETA are calling for a boycott of Hermès which sells luxury bags and belts using skin from reptiles. Alligators and crocodiles are factory farmed and brutally slaughtered for 'luxury' fashion. 

PETA investigated the conditions in which crocodiles and alligators were kept on leather farms, in Texas and Zimbabwe. It found that "Alligators are packed in dank pools and crocodiles are crowded in barren concrete pits for months or even years before finally being slaughtered for their skins." The animals are killed at a young age, often when they are just one, and using inhumane methods. They are often shot or cut into while still conscious and able to feel pain. 

"There is no justification for supporting such blatant cruelty." The campaign asks its supporters to contact Hermès demanding that it stop buying and selling crocodile and alligator skin accessories, and saying that it will be boycotting the company until them.

The BDS Movement has called for a boycott of both Hewlett-Packard and HP. Hewlett-Packard and HP have been two separate businesses since 2015, but BDS says that “because the companies share facilitates, branding and supply chains, and collaborate in a wide range of ways, both remain deeply complicit with Israeli apartheid.”

Hewlett-Packard is one of the top arms-producing companies in the world and has an extensive number of contracts with the Israeli state. It owns the company which developed the BASEL system, in use at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, which controls Palestinian movement through a system of ID cards and biometric information.

HP also maintains the IT infrastructure of the Israeli navy, which imposes a naval blockade of the Gaza strip, and provides and maintains computer equipment for the Israeli prison service, which stands accused of human rights abuses including the detention and torture of children. Read more about the Israel boycott here.

The BDS Movement has called for a boycott of both Hewlett-Packard and HP. Hewlett-Packard and HP have been separate businesses since 2015 but BDS says that “because the companies share facilitates, branding and supply chains, and collaborate in a wide range of ways, both remain deeply complicit with Israeli apartheid.”

Hewlett-Packard is one of the top arms-producing companies in the world and has an extensive number of contracts with the Israeli state. It owns the company which developed the BASEL system, in use at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, which controls Palestinian movement through a system of ID cards and biometric information.

HP also maintains the IT infrastructure of the Israeli navy, which imposes a naval blockade of the Gaza strip, and provides and maintains computer equipment for the Israeli prison service, which stands accused of human rights abuses including the detention and torture of children. More than 1.8 million people have signed a petition calling on HP to end its role in Israeli apartheid, and several US churches have voted to divest. Read more about the Israel Boycott here.

The BDS movement is led by Palestinian civil society, and based on the 2005 Call for “Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights”, which was endorsed by more than 170 Palestinian civil society networks and groups. It follows  "decades of refusal to abide by UN resolutions, International Humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention." Businesses operating in illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine have also been targeted.

BDS describes itself as "a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity."

Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.

The campaign has successfully persuaded governments, churches and banks to divest from companies involved in Israeli occupation, or which are operating in Israeli settlements in Palestine. It has also seen several targeted companies change their practices and break their ties with the Israeli government or relocate from settlements there. Read more about the Israel boycott.

GMO-Free USA has called a boycott of Kellogg's over the company's use of GMOs. The organisation stated that it had tested two Kellogg's cereal products, both of which were found to contain GMOs and glyphosate, the active chemical ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. The campaign claims:

Kellogg’s actively fought against food transparency and contributed nearly $2 million to propaganda campaigns to defeat citizens’ ballot initiatives for mandatory GMO labeling in California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado.

The campaign says that Kellogg’s spent over $3.6 million lobbying the US government in 2013 and 2014 to fight mandatory GMO labelling, something which it says that over 90% of all Americans want. It says that the pesticides and herbicides that the company used "deplete the soil, harm earthworms and other beneficial non-target organisms, and put the Monarch butterfly, bees and other species in jeopardy."

The campaign is also targeting Kellogg's due to that fact that it 'heavily markets to children'. It asks its supporters to contact the company about its GMO ingredients and lobbying. Thousands of people have signed the petition.

Naturewatch has a long-standing boycott of L'Oréal due to its continued use of animal testing for cosmetics. The French multinational uses ingredients that have been tested on animals, despite public statements to the contrary. It has also been criticised for lobbying against an EU ban on animal testing for cosmetics.

In 2003, L'Oréal was also reported to be part of the European Federation for Cosmetics Ingredients, a coalition of 70 European cosmetics companies. The organisation launched a legal challenge in the European Courts against the EU's ban on animal testing for cosmetics. 

Naturewatch has organised protests and other actions against L'Oréal. In 2017, it lifted its boycott call against The Body Shop, a former subsidiary of L'Oréal, after the company was purchased by Natura. Natura responded to Naturewatch's calls for a rigorous and transparent animal testing policy and has now been endorsed as a cruelty-free brand.

The Save Our Monkeys campaign, run by Cruelty Free International, is calling a boycott of Mauritius over its complicity in the live export of primates. The campaign states that Mauritius is one of the world’s largest suppliers of monkeys for experiments, exporting the animals to labs in Europe and the USA. During 2014, 8,991 monkeys were exported to laboratories primarily in Europe and the USA.

However, the organisation points out that the income from live exports of monkeys is minute compared to tourism, amounting to just 2% of Mauritian export income. It is calling for the government to move towards ethical tourism instead. In 2015, the campaign delivered a 162,000 strong petition to the Mauritian Prime Minister, calling for an end to the trade in monkeys from Mauritius.

Cruelty Free International has run under-cover investigations into the conditions on in monkey farms in Mauritius, as well as in facilities to which Mauritius exports the animals. It found that monkeys were being killed on the farm because they were excess to requirements, and once transported to testing facilities were subject to scientific experiments that caused them serious suffering.

The Sea Lies campaign is calling for a boycott of all Merlin Entertainment brands (Sea Life centres; Alton Towers; Legoland etc) due to their treatment of captive animals in their aquariums. The campaign is run by Captive Animal's Protection Society. In 2013, the Captive Animals' Protection Society commissioned an investigation into the Sea Life chain of aquariums.

The resulting report accused the company of taking animals from the wild to populate its aquariums, despite claiming that it would "never get any animal from the sea because we find it cruel". Sea Life was said to permit the killing of healthy animals because they were “surplus to requirements” or “too large to house” provided that it was first discussed by the company's Ethical Committee. The chain's parent company was also found to have purchased three other aquariums that housed dolphins or whales in confined conditions.

The campaign also raises wider animal welfare concerns and says that fish in the aquariums demonstrated stressed behaviours prompted by their lack of space. 

Naturewatch Foundation launched a boycott call against Method in April 2018, over the company's links to companies that test products on animals. In December 2017, Method and its sister company Ecover were purchased by SC Johnson, a US company that openly admits to testing on animals and owns other non Naturewatch-endorsed household cleaning brands such as Duck, Shout, Glade, Pledge and Windex.

Caroline Ruane, Naturewatch Foundation CEO, said:

It's hugely disappointing to compassionate shoppers when favourite brands compromise their cruelty free credentials by selling out to multinationals that continue to benefit from animal testing. We sincerely hope that Ecover and Method will stand up for animals by using their new position of influence to convince SC Johnson that the way ahead is cruelty free.

Until then, Naturewatch is asking compassionate consumers to boycott all SC Johnson brands, including Ecover and Method, until the entire company is cruelty-free. Supporters can take action, and contact the company here. Read more about the boycott.

BDS has called for a boycott of Motorola over the firm's business dealings with the Israel Defense Forces. It says that the company is complicit in and is enabling Israel's occupation of Palestine.

The company is said to supply military equipment to the government, "from fuses for aircraft bombs and guided missiles; military encrypted comms systems with transportable units which deploy with the army in to the battle field; advanced radar/thermal camera surveillance systems for the settlements; metal detection gates used at checkpoints; and a cellular network tailored for the settlements."

In 2009, the company sold its controversial unit that produced bomb fuses and other equipment for the Israeli military to another company, following protests in New York. However, Motorola continues to appear on the BDS boycott guide. The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel stated:

We are heartened that Motorola has eliminated at least its production of bomb fuses for bombs that Israel dropped on the Palestinian and Lebanese people. But we will continue our campaign to boycott Motorola until it is clear that it has eliminated production and sale of all products used to support Israeli apartheid.

Nestlé has been the subject of boycott calls around the world since the 1970s for its irresponsible marketing of baby milk formula. It is accused of "contributing to the unnecessary death and suffering of infants" through its aggressive marketing practices, which promote baby milk formula as a superior option to breastfeeding despite evidence to the contrary.

The use of formula has been linked to many issues: from increased prevalence of water-borne diseases, where parents do not have access to clean drinking water, to poverty and malnutrition, due to its high cost. As a result, the World Health Assembly has written a strict International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. However, reports show that Nestlé continues to violate the code. 

Nestlé also faces boycott calls from the non-profit The Council of Canadians and and indigenous rights organisation the Lakota People's Law Project over its extraction of scarce water sources. The organisations say that Nestlé continues "to pump millions of litres of water from watersheds" despite serious droughts in recent years, and "to act beyond the boundaries of ecological protection and basic human dignity."

A boycott of the NRA was called after the organisation called for teachers to be armed in schools following the deaths of 17 pupils at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018.

The organisation also received criticism over its social media responses to the shooting. It posted "Stand and High for our Kids' Safety by Joining NRA" on its Facebook page on the day of widespread protests for gun control and aired a video on its NRATV Youtube Channel titled 'A March for Their Lies', addressing Parkland student campaigners about their involvement in the gun control marches. In March 2018, it launched a lawsuit challenging Florida’s newly enacted law which bans the purchase of firearms by anyone under 21.

The boycott call covers companies that do business with the NRA. In particular, #NRAmazon calls on Amazon to drop NRATV from its Amazon Fire TV Streaming service. The channel has been described as the organisation’s most strident outlet for its pro-gun views. FedEx has also been targeted by the boycott for providing up to a 26% discount for NRA Business Alliance members, as has Apple.

This boycott was called in 2017 over the company's refusal to negotiate with staff over demands for a living wage. Negotiations have since started but the company is still refusing to pay the living wage. Strike action was ongoing as of January 2018. 

Boycotts have been called by staff from three Picturehouse cinemas in particular: East Dulwich, Brighton, Central and Hackney. The staff also accuse the company of refusing to recognise BECTU, the staff's chosen union and suspending union representatives in the run-up to strikes. In March 2018, BECTU launched a court case accusing Picturehouse of unfairly dismissing the three union reps. 

Gerry Morrissey, the leader of BECTU, stated:

It is appalling that Picturehouse and Cineworldwould rather intimidate and threaten to dismiss their staff than enter constructive negotiations. This is clearly an attempt to break the union by undermining the strike and intimidating other workers.

More than 25 actors and screenwriters have backed the boycott call, and over 15,000 members of the public has signed the petition. 

A day of action was held in protest against Puma’s sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes teams located in illegal Israeli settlements. 50 actions took place across 20 countries at the end of October.

The #BoycottPuma campaign was launched by Palestinian athletes in 2018 after 200 Palestinian sports clubs sent a letter to the company urging it to end its sponsorship.

Actions included protests at Puma shops and matches and a ‘subvertising’ campaign on the London underground calling for a boycott.

This follows Adidas announcing in July 2019 that it would no longer be sponsoring the IFA, following an international campaign and a petition of over 16,000 signatures.

The UN’s special adviser on sport for development and peace, and several human rights organisations, have previously called on Fifa to ban the six settlement teams.

The campaign also highlights the abusive treatment of Palestinian footballers, who it says are routinely attacked, imprisoned and killed, and denied freedom of movement and the right to attend matches.

Sabra hummus brand is part-owned by The Strauss Group. The Strauss Group is Israel's second biggest food company and has been identified as a target of the BDS movement as a result of its support for two notorious Israeli military units, Golani and Givati.

These brigades committed atrocities during Israel's 2009-10 deadly assault on Gaza. Their members have been known to use horrific imagery on t-shirts, such as a pregnant Palestinian woman in a sniper's cross-hairs, with the slogan “one shot, two kills”.  The company has previously claimed to have "adopted” the two platoons and provided the soldiers with food and personal care packages.  It has removed and reposted information on its website regarding its support for the Israeli military and the status of its current support is unclear.

Sabra hummus is sold by retailers in the UK including Sainsburys and Tesco. Sabra is also owned by PepsiCo, which manufactures Sabra products in the USA. Read our article on the Israel boycott here.

Over 100 academics, politicians, students’ unions and others have backed a boycott of the University of London over its treatment of migrant and BME (Black and Minority
Ethnic) outsourced workers.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) called the boycott after a year of strikes and campaigning by the workers, who provide essential services such as cleaning, catering and security.

Supporters say they will not attend or organise events with the university until all staff are made direct employees, after it came to light that the outsourced workers received worse sick pay, holiday pay, maternity pay and pension contributions than directly employed staff.

Several groups have called for a boycott of Shell over its damage to the environment and its human rights abuses. Boycott Shell says "Shell wants to drill in the Arctic.The rain forests are being cleared to make way for palm oil plantations for bio-fuel for European cars."

Other campaigns focus on its actions in the Niger Delta, and its treatment of the Ogoni population there. Essential Action, a member of the initial campaign, stated:

Since Shell began drilling oil in Ogoniland in 1958, the people of Ogoniland have had pipelines built across their farmlands and in front of their homes, suffered endemic oil leaks from these very pipelines, been forced to live with the constant flaring of gas. This environmental assault has smothered land with oil, killed masses of fish and other aquatic life, and introduced devastating acid rain to the land of the Ogoni.

Campaigners say that Shell has worked with the Nigerian government to suppress Ogoni protests. In 1995, 9 environmental activists were given the death penalty. Two witnesses in the trial - that gained worldwide opposition - later admitted to having been bribed by Shell. The boycott call is upheld by MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People).

SodaStream faces a boycott call over its production facilities in the illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. SodaStream’s main production site is in Mishor Edomim, an Israeli settlement industrial park located in the West Bank. The land where the SodaStream factory is located was illegally confiscated by the Israeli military occupation authorities from Palestinian owners. Read more about the boycott here.

It also has a second factory in the Rahat area in the Naqab (Negev) desert in Israel. The BDS National Committee told Ethical Consumer:

Far from reducing its direct contribution to human rights abuses, SodaStream’s factory in the Rahat area in the Naqab (Negev) amounts to conscious participation in Israel’s plans to ethnically cleanse tens of thousands of Bedouin Palestinian citizens of Israel from their ancestral lands.

The Israeli government has long-standing policies to force the Bedioun communities of the Naqab off of their traditional lands and into “authorised” townships. The 2011 Prawer Plan aimed to displace at least 40,000 people and, although it was officially put on hold in 2013, it seems that it will still be carried out in a modified form. Tens of thousands of Palestinians live in unrecognized villages in the Naqab and are denied basic services such as electricity, water and education. The boycott of the company continues. 

Korean Dogs has launched a campaign against South Korea for allowing the slaughter of dogs for meat. It states that the dogs are held in poor conditions, often caged in cramped and dirty conditions. It also accuses dog farms of using inhumane methods to slaughter the dogs, including electrocution and burning.The dogs are said to be pumped full of antibiotics and medicines

The campaign states:

South Korea has the world’s 14th largest economy and is home to global brands such as Samsung, Hyundai, Kia, LG, SK, and Daewoo. Yet this is also a country where an estimated 2.5 million dogs and thousands of cats are slaughtered and eaten each year.

Dog-meat consumption is illegal in South Korea. However, the campaign says that the government does nothing to enforce this law, allowing the practice to continue. It also accuses the country of allowing the import of dog meat from China, in order to fulfill the country's demand.The boycott is asking followers to write to the Korean Ambassador and President demanding that they enforce the law.

Starbucks is under a boycott call from the US Organic Consumer's Association over its involvement in efforts to overturn Vermont's GMO labelling laws.

Although Starbucks is not directly involved, it is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), which was party to a lawsuit in 2014 against the state of Vermont intended to overturn Vermont’s GMO labeling law. OCA is calling for a boycott of Starbucks until the company "stop paying dues to GMA".

The Lakota People's Law Project (LPLP), an indigenous rights organisation, has also called for a boycott of the company over its partnership with Nestlé, "undoubtedly one of the world's most environmentally-unsound corporations". In 2018, Starbucks signed a $7.15 billion deal with Starbucks - the third largest transaction in Nestle's 152-year history - which allows the company to sell Starbucks branded products.

Starbucks has also been heavily criticised by Ethical Consumer over corporate tax avoidance, and has further boycott calls against it over the issue.

Human rights campaigners in Asia are calling for a boycott of sugar company Tate & Lyle over land rights abuses in Cambodia. Activists say that sugar produced on land confiscated by the Cambodian government and handed over to plantation owners is being sold by Tate & Lyle in the UK, Europe and US.

The Cambodian government is accused of leasing out land to companies, after using security forces to evict its residents. The process has also been linked to a slew of other human rights violations, such as serious water pollution, child labour, murder and assault. The Clean Sugar Campaign says:

Forcibly deprived of their productive base by local and foreign investors backed by state security forces, hundreds of thousands of Cambodian who pulled themselves out of poverty are once again struggling to survive.

In March 2013, over 200 farmers from Koh Kong province filed a claim in the UK High Court against Tate & Lyle for the tort of “unjust enrichment” (i.e. profiting from goods produced from land illegally taken by its supplier). According to the boycott's website, the lawsuit is ongoing.

Both Ethical Consumer and Grab Your Wallet have called a boycott of Trump and those companies that are supporting him over his regressive policies on climate change and his attitude to equality and discrimination issues.

In April 2017, Ethical Consumer looked at the companies supporting Trump, either through political donations or by sitting on his Strategic and Policy Forum (an advisory group made up of the CEOs of major companies). We also looked for those companies that have lobbied against Trump, including the more than 120 companies that filed a legal brief against Trump's first travel ban, and have included them as brands opposing Trump.

Ten UK Brands Backing or Working with Trump

1. Anadin
2. Microsoft
3. Esso
4. Marlboro
5. Vauxhall
6. Crocs
7. Asda
8. Pepsi
9. Jack Wolfskin
10. Victoria's Secret

Ten UK Brands Opposing Trump

1. Staples
2. Levi Strauss
3. Ebay
4. Timberland
5. North Face
6. Dropbox
7. Mozilla
8. Netflix
9. Acer
10. Virgin

Since then, lots of companies have severed ties to Trump. Several of his advisory committees have been forced to dissolve due to a lack of CEOs willing to link themselves to Trump's policies. However, company continue to donate to the Republican party and sell Trump company products. Grab Your Wallet has an up-to-date list of all companies and organisations to boycott.

In January 2016, 2,212 academics working in, or researching on, Turkey signed a declaration calling on the Turkish government to end the war in the Kurdish region. They demanded a peaceful resolution of the decades-long Kurdish question, and allow international observers to monitor the situation in Kurdish towns and cities destroyed by security forces.

Since then, the signatories, who came to be known as Academics for Peace, have been subjected to vindictive and punitive attacks from the government and the higher education establishment. They are calling for a targeted boycott of a number of academic institutions involved in these attacks.

The boycott was called after Wendy's refused to join the Fair Food Program (FFP). The FFO is a social responsibility program that addresses decades-old farm labour abuses. All Wendy's major competitors such as McDonalds, Burger King, Subway and Taco Bell have signed up. 

Those that sign up agree to purchase exclusively from suppliers meeting the code of conduct including a zero-tolerance policy for slavery and sexual harassment. The campaign says that instead of joining the Program, Wendy’s has taken its tomato purchases to Mexico, where workers continue to confront wage theft, gender-based violence, child labor, and even slavery without access to protections.

The boycott has been backed by multiple individuals and organisations, and the campaign is calling for Shareholder action, to demand that Wendy's join the Fair Food Program.