Lentis/Flight Shaming

Introduction

Flight shaming, known as flygskam in Sweden, translates literally to "flight shame". It is an unorganized social movement that aims to reduce the emissions produced by the aviation industry. Through shaming those who do travel by flight, the movement attempts to remind individuals of other forms of transportation as an alternative to flying.

Aviation provides for 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. For the individual, the average carbon footprint for an individual in the United States is 16 tons. To have the best chance to avoid the 2°C rise in global temperatures, the average global footprint needs to drop under 2 tons. These statistics show how individuals need to make significant efforts to decreasing their carbon footprint. Due to the large dependence on fuel emitting transportation in modern society, tackling that could make push towards those significant efforts.

Choice architecture is the idea that choices can be presented in ways to impact the decision. Aviation provides a clear example for this, with long distance travel being optimized for air travel. Flight shaming movements look to challenge this choice architecture, providing alternatives for long distance travel. Train travel, for example, could provide up to 80% reduced carbon emissions as opposed to the same trip over flight.

Participants

Celebrities

Flight shaming started with Swedish singer songwriter, Staffan Lindberg's pledge to stop flying. In this announcement, Lindberg coined the term flygskam. The movement gained traction when Olympian, Björn Ferry and opera singer, Malena Ernman took the same pledge. Ernman is also the mother of Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg.

Greta Thunberg

In 2019, Thunberg turned on the world to the idea of avoiding flying by sailing from Plymouth, United Kingdom to the United States on a zero emission yacht. The purpose of the 15 day journey was for Thunberg to attend the Climate Action Summit in New York. The average emissions from an 8 hour flight from Plymouth to New York is 724 kg CO₂. For comparison, the per capita CO₂ emissions in Sweden in 2018 was 3540 kg.

Social Media

Social media is largely where the movement takes place. The Instagram account @aninglosainfluencers takes flight shaming literally. This account, while not recently active, peaked with over 50k followers. Their main goal is to publicly shame influencers for taking flights that otherwise could have been avoided. They do this by calling out the person on their Instagram story along with the specifics of that person's emissions.

Along with Instagram, there is support for no flying among Facebook groups. Jag flyger inte - för klimatets skull (I do not fly - for the sake of the climate) is a Swedish Facebook group with over 2,000 members. In order to become a member of this group, one has to take a pledge to not travel by plane. This group, like many others, will share events and ideas on the topic of climate change in order to promote reducing emissions.

Impacts

The impact of flight shaming has been called the "Greta effect" for the role she has played in popularizing the movement. Based on the data from the ten busiest airports in Sweden, Swedavia reported that the number of passengers flying decreased from 42 million in 2018 to 40 million in 2019. There was a 9% decrease in the number of domestic passengers in 2019. The decline has been also attributed to the Swedish aviation tax, which was passed in 2018, with a majority of Swedes supporting it. Klarna Bank AB responded to flight shaming by implementing a short haul flight ban, which prevents employees from flying in Europe. However, the overall impact of flight shaming has not been as significant in the rest of Europe. The demand for air travel remained strong, with the number of passengers flying in EU increasing from 1 billion in 2017 to 1.1 billion in 2018.

Train Brag

Flight shaming has resulted in a new movement called train brag, which is about people reducing their carbon footprint by choosing trains over planes. The changing public attitude towards train travel is evident from increasing train ridership in Sweden. According to SJ, Sweden's national train operator, the number of train passengers rose by 17% in the summer of 2019 and the number of train journeys increased by 5% in 2018. Sweden, Austria, and Italy are increasing investments in high-speed rail and night time trains.

Train vacation is a social group on Facebook, in which members share stories and information about taking train vacation trips in Europe. With greater interest in train travel, the group's membership has increased from 3,000 in 2017 to 117,000 in 2021.

Emerging Campaigns

Flight shaming has spurred other social movements. Through We Stay on the Ground and flight free campaigns, people can pledge to stop flying for a year. We Stay on the Ground campaign was started after the founders became aware of the changing sentiment towards aviation in Sweden. The Flight Free UK campaign gathered over 100,000 commitments in 2020 and similar campaigns are available in the United States and other countries.

JetBlue

In 2020, JetBlue became the first U.S. airline to achieve carbon neutrality on all domestic flights. JetBlue looked at Sweden as an example of reducing emissions from domestic commercial flights. The airline is able to offset carbon emissions by partnering with Carbonfund.org and employing techniques such as Landfill Gas Capture, wind and solar, and forestry. Other U.S. based airlines, such as American Airlines and United, have also partnered with offsetting programs in efforts to reduce the impacts of flights. However, unlike JetBlue, they are not going completely carbon neutral.

Opposition

Some who oppose the flight shaming movement criticize the shaming aspect. Shaming has a negative connotation associated with it, putting down another by making them feel guilty. In the context of the flight shaming movement, making one feel guilty about flying to travel could not be the most productive way of creating change and challenging the aviation industry. This would force individuals to change their behavior and not tell others about any flight they choose to take, a phenomenon seen in Sweden. A more productive method to challenge that choice architecture could be educating on alternative methods of transport, or constructive criticisms as opposed to shaming.

International Air Transport Association

The airline industry has responded to the threat of declining air travel due to flight shaming. The head of International Air Transport Association (IATA), Alexandre de Juniac, stated "we will launch a very, very big campaign" in response to flight shaming and "misleading information". He further explained that the flight shaming movement is giving people "a false choice: to fly or not to fly" and they are already making efforts to be more sustainable through carbon offsets, advances in aviation fuel, and the development of electric aircrafts.

KLM Airlines

KLM Airlines launched a campaign called "Fly Responsibly" to explain the airline's sustainability efforts and what the passengers and industry can do to lower emissions. The campaign website asks the passengers to consider their carbon offset program and alternative modes of transportation, such as trains, for short distance travel. In response to flight shaming, KLM representative Boet Kreiken stated "we don't like to shame" because "it doesn't solve any issue", but they "frame it as responsible behavior from the airlines, the customer, and the industry".

Conclusion

Through flight shaming, substantial impacts were made in reducing Swedish flights, and spurring other organized movements. By challenging the choice architecture of aviation, the flight shaming movement has created significant impacts through actions from an unorganized movement. The unorganized movement not only shames individuals on flights they are taking, but also educates individuals for their future decisions to reduce their individual carbon footprint. This challenges the choice architecture of the aviation industry in the long-term, not only shaming individuals in the now but impacting future decision making.

Future work

While flight shaming has brought a positive impact towards reducing carbon emissions, there is still a lot to be done. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is one technology that needs to continue to be explored. SAF is made from sustainable feedstock and works similarly to traditional jet fuel. JetBlue is utilizing it in their efforts and the effect could be at most a 80% reduction in carbon emissions.

Likewise, domestic travel by train needs to be prioritized especially in the United States. It is clear from train brag that travel by train instead of plane can not only reduce over emissions but be a rewarding way of travel. If the United States can increase the accessibility of train travel, then there will most likely be a correlated decrease in air travel.