In the category of “Okay, I guess I can see what you’re going for here if I sort of squint,” we have today’s surprising news that Amsterdam will become the world’s first capital city to ban public advertisements for meat, in addition to banning ads for the wide-ranging category of “fossil fuel products.” The reason for the ban is not necessarily driven by health rationalization–rather, it’s an acknowledgement of the higher levels of carbon output involved in the commercial meat industry than meals produced via plant-based alternatives, by a progressive Dutch city that has already vowed it will become carbon neutral by 2050. The city hopes to effectively tie the two together–meat and fossil fuels–as carbon-producing industries in the public consciousness, to decrease consumption of both of them over the same period.
What does this look like in practice? Well, no more billboards or signage for chicken nuggets, for one. No billboards for cars or airlines, either–nor budget travel agencies advertising low-cost flights to other European vacation destinations. Amsterdam’s leaders and political officials hope that less advertising in these sectors will lead to natural decreases in consumption, implying that we are more susceptible to ads than we would likely choose to acknowledge. They see it as an opportunity to create what one activist termed a “tobacco moment” for high-carbon foods, referring to the near-total banning of tobacco advertising.
“The climate crisis is very urgent,” said Dutch GreenLeft Party representative Anneke Veenhoff to BBC. “I mean, if you want to be leading in climate policies and you rent our your walls to exactly the opposite, then what are you doing? Most people don’t understand why the municipality should make money out of renting our public space with something that we are actively having policies against.”
There is empirical reason to think that a decrease in this advertising could have at least some kind of modest effect. Back in 2019, Transport for London, which operates the city’s Underground and public transportation systems, banned “junk food advertising” in its spaces, defined as “high in fat, salt and sugar” (HFSS) foods. A later analysis of millions of grocery purchases in the period after the ban suggested that a modest but statistically significant dip in buying of junk food such as chocolate and confectionery did indeed follow. Nor is Amsterdam the by any means the first to ban fossil fuel advertising, as that particular trend has been catching on in cities such as Edinburgh, Florence and Stockholm–in fact, all of France has now banned it.
In Amsterdam, however, the broadness of simply banning advertising of any form of “meat” has a rather more arbitrary feel, raising accusations that the city is enforcing impractically anal nanny state policies. This is not helped by the commentary of politicians like Amsterdam’s Anke Bakker of the Dutch Party for the Animals, who made the following supposed appeal to personal freedom in the same BBC piece: “Everybody can just make their own decisions, but actually we are trying to get the big companies not to tell us all the time what we need to eat and buy. In a way, we’re giving people more freedom because they can make their own choice, right?”
That is a disingenuous argument at best, the fallback of an activist literally working for a political party centered on animal rights. Oh, you don’t want “big companies” telling you “what we need to eat and buy,” but it’s only an issue if the thing in question is a hamburger? It’s not a problem if PepsiCo attempts to influence you to replenish electrolytes with sugar-packed Gatorade, or the wholesome, farm-freshness of Lay’s potato chips? You’re fine with being “told” to consume those via advertising? Unsurprisingly, entities like the Dutch Meat Association have a rather different read and opinion on the idea of such an advertising ban, calling it “an undesirably way to influence consumer behavior,” because meat “delivers essential nutrients and should remain visible and accessible to consumers.” You’ve got to love the idea of a concept as wide as “meat” needing a PR agent to speak for it as a whole.
Indeed, it is difficult to really consider the implications of such an advertising ban for “meat” without running into a constant bevy of “but what about…” questions. For instance, how about meat in pet food products, for creatures that are obligate carnivores? What about advertising for alcohol and liquor? As far as I can tell, they’re still universally allowed throughout Amsterdam, even when public ads for burgers, cars, tobacco and other traditional vices like gambling are all banned. Vodka ads, though? Those are apparently fine. Everyone knows that booze doesn’t ad to global carbon emissions. It seems safe to say which of these industries ultimately had the best lobbyists.
Moreover, the ban takes on a greater air of absurdity when you consider the following: Fast food giants like McDonald’s can still advertise in these spaces under the letter of Amsterdam’s new law, provided they simply feature visuals and products that don’t involve meat. McDonald’s in other words, can still put up as many billboards for French fries as it wants, and Wendy’s can tiptoe around the 81 grams of sugar found in a large Frosty to its heart’s content. The city is apparently just hoping that if you’re influenced by advertising to visit McDonald’s for fries, that you’ll eschew meat while there. Nor does the law actually regulate digital advertising in any way, merely the physical billboards and signage we encounter when we’re out and about. In a world where our eyes are perpetually tied to screens, even while in transit, how big an impact can the banning of advertising in those public spaces really achieve? Surely there’s no one out there who will attempt to argue that roadside billboards somehow have a deeper influence on us in this day and age than the almighty social media algorithm.
Nevertheless, science types still seem cautiously optimistic that even a modest decline in the amount of fast food advertising the average person is buffeted with will ultimately have both health and environmental benefits, even if the ban doesn’t affect the digital screens that almost certainly must register as the single largest influences we encounter on a daily basis.
“If we see advertisements for fast food everywhere, it normalizes the behavior of fast food consumption,” said Dutch epidemiologist Joreintje Mackenbach. “So if we take away those types of cues in our public living environments, then that is also going to have an impact on those social norms.”
Perhaps it will, although good luck stigmatizing burgers as effectively as cigarettes. They might both cause cancer, and be responsible for heating our planet, but only one frequently comes topped with cheese and bacon.