Amsterdam is famously a place where anything goes. Prostitution is legal. Coffee shops sell marijuana and hashish. Truffles laced with the psychoactive compounds found in hallucinogenic mushrooms are available at \u201csmart shops.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what is no longer allowed in the freewheeling city\u2019s public spaces are advertisements for products that some city councilors consider to be true vices: Big Macs. Exotic vacations. Gas-powered cars.<\/p>\n
On May 1, Amsterdam became the first capital city in the world to ban ads for fossil fuel products and meat. It is part of the city\u2019s efforts to discourage consumption of goods linked with high carbon emissions.<\/p>\n
Ads for airlines, cruises, and faraway destinations are no longer allowed, because they implicitly promote the burning of fossil fuels. Ads for beef, chicken, pork and fish are also banned, because of the environmental harms caused by animal agriculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you spend lots of tax money and have lots of policies trying to manage climate change in Amsterdam, why would you rent out your public walls to exactly the opposite?\u201d said Anneke Veenhoff, a city councilor whose party, GreenLeft, championed the ban, along with Party for the Animals (GreenLeft is now merging with another party).<\/p>\n
Ms. Veenhoff likened high carbon lifestyles to an addiction. \u201cIf you\u2019re trying to get rid of an addiction, it\u2019s not very handy to see it everywhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Amsterdam\u2019s law applies to city-owned properties and public spaces, such as buses and bus shelters, benches, trams, trains and metro stations, and billboards. Advertising in privately owned stores and in media such as newspapers, radio and online formats is exempt.<\/p>\n
The City Council in The Hague, the seat of the national government, passed the first law banning fossil fuel ads in 2024. The following year, a Dutch travel trade association and several travel agencies sued, arguing that the ban was an overreach that violated freedom of expression rules and European Union consumer law. But the judge sided with the city, ruling that the health of its citizens and the climate was more important than commercial interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not up to the municipality to refrain from taking measures to promote the health of its residents in order to strengthen the future position of travel providers,\u201d the judge wrote<\/a>, according to Euronews.<\/p>\n The Hague\u2019s win opened the door to Amsterdam\u2019s law.<\/p>\n Amsterdam passed a motion to ban ads for fossil fuel and high emissions travel in 2020, but it wasn\u2019t legally binding and carried no penalties. The new law gives the city enforcement teeth, and includes the meat advertising ban. This year will largely be considered a grace period, but fines can still be issued to scofflaws.<\/p>\n Before the Amsterdam ordinance was voted on in January, a major outdoor advertising company, JCDecaux, urged city councilors to reject it, warning that advertising revenue helped maintain public infrastructure. In an email to The Times, a representative for JCDecaux declined to comment.<\/p>\n