It’s deciding to refuse to buy a certain product: clothing items, food…

Or to systematically reject a brand or company.

It can also be refusing to take part in a meeting, a competition or elections.

Or on a larger scale, to stop all relations with a country as a protest.

But why use a boycott?

To put pressure on a person, a company or a country, for them to change their behavior or their policy.

The expression comes from Charles Cunningham Boycott, a 19th-century British landowner.

The farmers working his land accused him of mistreatment. They revolted and refused to give him anything. The man ended up ruined.

Today, a company causing pollution could be the target of a boycott for ecological reasons.