Between Social Cause and Industrial Commodity: The Market for Biodiesel in the United States

• In Event: 355 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 21. Production as Collective Behavior

Abstract

This study examines how a social movement and commercial firms interacted in the development of a market for a renewable energy product. Drawing on ethnographic and archival data on the commercial biodiesel industry and the grassroots biodiesel movement, the findings show how the movement challenged the commercial industry to adopt sustainable production and governance practices. The findings demonstrate how the commercial industry’s response – revising the definition of legitimate production, assimilating movement organizations, and formally adopting the movement’s grievances – turned the movement from an ideologically motivated challenger into a market participant. The paper shows that despite having conflicting goals, the movement and the commercial industry collaborated because they possessed different but complementary types of legitimacy necessary for building a robust market.

Author

• Daisy Chung, Stanford University