What Was the Impact of the Insulate Britain Campaign?

Why this matters

Most assessments of protest effectiveness look only at the short term. Insulate Britain declared failure after just a few months - but short-term self-assessments of this kind routinely underestimate impact. This report offers a rare, rigorous long-term analysis of a disruptive campaign, showing how effects on public discourse, sector momentum, and government policy can unfold over months and years.

What we found

Despite overwhelmingly negative public opinion towards the tactics (72% opposed by October 2021), Insulate Britain had a dramatic effect on discourse about the policy issue. Media mentions of ‘home insulation’ went from near zero to hundreds per day on days of action, and Google searches for the term remained elevated for a year after the campaign ended. Parliamentary mentions of home insulation and retrofit were six and two times higher respectively during and after the campaign compared to before. These effects fed into the sector: organisations working on insulation reported that an issue previously seen as ‘boring’ and hard to get traction on suddenly ‘became the subject of water cooler conversations’. In November 2022 - a year after the campaign - the government announced the £1 billion Great British Insulation Scheme. According to The Times, No. 10 briefly considered naming it ‘Insulate Britain’ before realising the association. Modelling Insulate Britain’s contribution to that policy at 5-10% attribution and one year of brought-forward emissions savings gives a realistic cost-effectiveness estimate of 0.25-0.51 tonnes of CO₂ per pound spent.

What it means for the movement

The report demonstrates that campaigns dismissed as failures in the short term can have significant long-term effects through indirect pathways - shifting discourse, energising allies, and creating the conditions in which policy change becomes possible. It also highlights real costs: hundreds of arrests, nine custodial sentences during the campaign, and new restrictive protest legislation (the Public Order Act) introduced partly in response to Insulate Britain’s actions. For funders and activists, the central finding is that Insulate Britain’s £128k campaign achieved emission reductions broadly comparable in cost-effectiveness to the top-rated climate charity - suggesting that well-targeted disruptive activism can be among the most leveraged tools available for climate action.