Behaviour · climate
Flight shame (flygskam)
The social movement and personal unease that discourages air travel because of its climate impact, originating in Sweden in 2017–2018.
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Flight shame — Swedish flygskam — is a social phenomenon in which people feel unease or social disapproval about flying because of aviation's outsized carbon footprint, and reduce or forgo air travel as a result. The term was coined in Sweden in 2017, popularised internationally from 2018–2019 by climate activist Greta Thunberg and Swedish public figures, and spawned companion terms such as tågskryt ("train brag") and smygflyga ("flying in secret"). Commercial aviation accounts for roughly 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, with a small minority of frequent flyers responsible for a large share; in Sweden, where the movement took hold, domestic air travel fell about 9% in 2019 while rail ridership rose.
References
2017 coinage, Thunberg popularisation, tågskryt/smygflyga, ~2.5% aviation CO2 share, Swedish domestic-travel decline
Overview
What it means
Flygskam demonstrated that social norms can shift high-carbon behaviour faster than price signals alone, prompting airline-industry responses from carbon-offset purchases to lobbying against aviation taxes — and a policy echo in measures such as France's 2023 ban on short-haul flights where rail alternatives exist.
How it is used
Used in discussions of behaviour change, aviation demand management and the limits of individual action versus structural policy.
Why it matters
It is the clearest recent case of a sustainability social norm measurably moving demand in a hard-to-abate sector.
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