Bristol’s milestone advertising ban: What about ads fuelling the climate crisis?
Image credit: Adblock Bristol
On 9th March 2021, Bristol City Council adopted a new policy to end all advertising for junk food, gambling, payday loans and alcohol on council-owned sites (ie. bus shelters, digital screens and billboards). This ban comes after years of efforts from campaigners to highlight the undermining effects of these ads on public health matters.
The ban in context
Calls for a ban on junk food ads started three years ago in Bristol. Campaigners were frustrated at the lack of consideration given to public opposition against planning applications for new advertising sites.
Bristol City Council’s advertising ban comes after the decision from Transport for London to ban all ads for products high in fat, salt and / or sugar (HFSS). But Bristol's new advertising and sponsorship policy goes even further by including ads for gambling, payday loans and alcohol. This is a significant step for Bristol as it is now the first city in the UK to have this wide-ranging an advertising ban. But campaigners from Adblock Bristol said the Council missed a significant opportunity to end advertising for products fuelling the climate crisis.
What about high-carbon adverts?
There were strong calls, led by Adblock Bristol, for the Council’s ban to introduce a mention of high-carbon products such as airlines, fossil fuels and cars. The campaigning group put forward a petition demanding that advertising for climate wrecking products should be part of the disallowed products in the council’s new advertising policy. More than 1000 people supported the call. A ban on high-carbon products would have followed the lead from Amsterdam City Council who, in December 2020, prohibited all advertising and sponsorship deals promoting fossil fuel companies and airlines. The city is now the first in the world to have implemented such a ban.
New research in the Journal of European Consumer and Market Law (which we cover here) also supports the evidence that fossil fuels ads - and by extension high-carbon adverts - should be restricted given their highly manipulative and misleading power. The author Clemens Kaupa, from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam says: “In the light of the massive and immediate GHG emission reductions needed to achieve the Paris goal, the representation of fossil fuel use as normal and acceptable [as shown in advertising] is factually incorrect.”
With more than 300 local public authorities having signed a climate emergency declaration and committed to act swiftly on climate change, prohibiting high-carbon advertising is a first essential step.
Could the next Council to lead by example be Norwich City Council? Recently formed Adblock Norwich group is now working with the local councillors to introduce a similar advertising policy prohibiting harmful adverts including environmentally-damaging products .
Want to campaign against high-carbon advertising? You can join your local Adblock group in your city (Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Norwich and Leeds) or set up a new one with the help of Adfree Cities.