Sometimes it’s hard to see what kind of power consumers could possibly have. So what if you don’t buy that soda because you don’t agree with its makers’ stance on Gaza? Millions of others are still drinking up without an ounce of moral objection. So what if you personally refuse to wear fur – if enough people are buying fluffy coats to keep fur farms in business?



Each one of us, individually, is a minority voice in the grand scheme of capitalism, so it’s hard to be heard. Occasionally, however, consumers vote with their wallets and win. The business world can often be heartless, but it is flawlessly attentive to one thing: profit. While corporations are amoral, people aren’t. The way to create more moral companies is to bend profit to your will.



Here’s a big win this week: SeaWorld, the home of Shamu the killer whale and the target of the harrowing documentary Blackfish, which detailed the living conditions of orcas in parks and their sometimes violent behavior there. Blackfish’s success was hardly overnight: the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013, well over 18 months ago.



For nearly all of that time, SeaWorld refused to admit it was wrong. It had denied that the documentary, or the wave of activism it spurred from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or on sites like Sea World of Hurt, had any effect on profits: CEO Jim Atchison said that concerns about animal safety had “no noticeable impact” on the company’s attendance or profits. SeaWorld kept up its resistance even after California assemblyman Richard Bloom introduced a bill, which was deferred for a year, that would curtail the import of orca whales and their use in theme parks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tilikum the killer whale, the star of the influential documentary ‘Blackfish’. Animal rights activists say that a flopping dorsal fin on top, as pictured here, demonstrates a depressed or abused whale. Photograph: Allstar/MAGNOLIA PICTURES/Sportsphoto Ltd.



The illusion is now over. According to sources, SeaWorld plans to change how it treats and keeps orca whales – a necessary move after consumers abandoned the company’s theme parks in greater numbers. SeaWorld’s profits, announced yesterday, were $34m short of what Wall Street expected, and the company has had to offer extensive discounts to keep people coming to its parks. Its stock price tanked by nearly one-third yesterday – the kind of number that makes any investor sit up and take notice.

So SeaWorld promised it would change things. CEO Jim Atchison told investors yesterday that the company plans “ground-breaking investments” and “additional new attractions”.



SeaWorld has already invested $70m in its habitats over the past four years, so any new investment will have to be really big and more than just a sop to consumers. (A SeaWorld spokesman declined to comment.)



The question that SeaWorld will have to answer after its “ground-breaking investments” is will it be enough.



Activists have a long list of demands: larger tanks and spaces for orcas to swim in; better food and diets that don’t include the bones of land mammals like cows and pigs; better medical care; and lighter demands for training and shows. On the extreme end, most activists would prefer that SeaWorld end its killer-whale training entirely, allowing the existing whales to live out their lives and to stop training new ones.



The announcements from SeaWorld will appear in the coming days. It’s a victory for consumers, but it is tempered by one factor: SeaWorld resisted ground-breaking change when it was only consumers who backed away. But when investors complained by driving down the company’s stock price, SeaWorld acted quickly. Corporate morality is still determined by those with the money to enforce it.





Update: on Friday, August 15, SeaWorld said it would nearly double the size of its water tanks for killer whales to 10m gallons, create a “water treadmill” to help the animals exercise, and devote millions to research of their physiology.



PETA responded: “This is a desperate drop-in-the-bucket move to try to turn back the hands of time at a time when people understand the suffering of captive orcas, and it will not save the company. What could save it would be the recognition that it needs not to make larger tanks but to turn the orcas out in seaside sanctuaries so that they can feel and experience the ocean again, hear their families, and one day be reunited with them. A bigger prison is still a prison.”