Fossil fuel sponsorship is climate colonialism – our sector must help end it

In a recent Ipsos poll, 84% of the British public expressed concern about climate change. Many are trying to "do their bit" while political parties the world over play hot potato with scientific evidence that points overwhelmingly to a future of mass suffering and species extinction.

What sector could be better equipped to help people navigate these mixed messages than museums and heritage, using collections as a focus?

Unfortunately, greenwashing is alive and well even in the museum sector, in the form of fossil fuel sponsorship. For companies that put profit before people, disregard ecological boundaries and lobby against government regulation, endorsement by a cultural institution is reputational gold.

Most UK museums now understand that they’d betray their visitors’ trust by performing this alchemy, thanks to years of sustained grassroots campaigning, and point 3.6 in the Museums Association’s Code of Ethics, that we should "seek support from organisations whose ethical values are consistent with those of the museum”.

However, two nationals continue to accept fossil fuel money – the British Museum and the Science Museum.

Earlier this month it was reported that the Science Museum had quietly ended an eight-year partnership with the state-owned Norwegian firm Equinor, citing its failure to align with the declining emissions trajectory mandated by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

However, as someone whose career in museums has grown side by side with climate activism, I’ve found that museum’s most recent deal with Adani Green Energy – the sponsor of their new Energy Revolution gallery – deeply disturbing.

Adani Green Energy is one of six companies in the Adani Group. The conglomerate is the world’s largest private developer of coal-fired power plants.

In central India, Indigenous Adivasi communities have been mobilising for many years, at great threat to themselves, to stop Adani Group businesses bulldozing their sacred, biodiverse Hasdeo Forest.

In Australia, the Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owners saw their cultural landscape blown up by the Australian arm of the Adani Group in 2021 to make way for the hugely controversial Carmichael coal mine, which has capacity to extract up to 27 million tonnes per year.

To top it off, in a 2023 report, the financial research firm, Hindenburg Research, alleged that the Adani empire was built on the back of ”brazen stock manipulation”.

It is widely known that Adani Green Energy is inseparable from the rest of the Adani Group, yet the Science Museum Group continues to defend the partnership, claiming it is for the greater good of the museum.

[The Science Museum Group has made clear that its sponsorship deal is with Adani Green Energy, not with Adani Group. It says Adani Green Energy is playing a vital role in efforts to decarbonise the global economy.]

If we allow cultural heavyweights to show such blatant disregard for climate justice, we risk museums regressing into colonial spaces that cast fossil fuel companies as worthy saviours, rather than acknowledging the irreversible damage their activities have caused in the past, present and future.

I’ve therefore considered it part of my professional duty to join Fossil Free Science Museum at several of their in-museum protests over the last few years.

Most recently, more than 30 frontline solidarity activists, scientists, educators, and young people conducted a two-day occupation of the new Adani Green Energy-sponsored Energy Revolution gallery.

During this entirely peaceful action, participants built a mound of fake "coal" in the centre of the gallery. They planned to interact calmly with visitors and invite them to leave feedback around the installation, which they would later submit to the museum.

Instead, security closed off the gallery for the whole weekend, preventing an interesting visitor engagement exercise from taking place regarding sponsorship ethics.

With our sector’s vulnerability to headline-grabbing protest activity now on high alert, compounded by a recent legislative crackdown on “disruptive” protest, it’s paramount that we don’t move to shut down all dissenting voices daring to stage a presence in our spaces, where their input can increase transparency and opportunities for shared learning.

Moreover, should we really be leaning so heavily on people outside of museums and heritage to shift the window of acceptability within?

My answer is adamantly “no”. The global climate has currently hovered for over one year above the target limit of 1.5c degrees of heating set by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

This is not a safety threshold – climate breakdown is lethal in the here and now – but a point beyond which the Earth’s regulatory systems will more likely tip into positive feedback loops that we’ll have little ability to control.

The work of tomorrow’s museums is being shaped by the economic actors of today, chief among them the giants of the oil and gas industry.

It’s time for our sector to stand up and refuse to dance to their destructive tune.

Louisa Jones is a learning and engagement professional based in south east England and a member of the Museums Association's climate justice steering group.

Museums Journal is editorially independent. Views expressed here are written in a personal capacity and should not be taken to represent the policies or position of the Museums Association.