The Science Museum in London is ending its nearly 25-year relationship with BP following sustained pressure over its links to the oil and gas company.<\/p>\n
The Science Museum Group (SMG), which oversees the Science Museum and five other organisations across England, confirmed on Friday (28 August) that its partnership with BP will draw to a close on 31 August \u201cat the end of its agreed term\u201d. However, The Times reported<\/a> that the current sponsorship agreement, which began in 2018, had previously been described as a ten-year deal and was expected to run until 2028. The SMG has been contacted for clarification.<\/p>\n BP\u2019s relationship with the museum dates back almost a quarter of a century and has included sponsorship of its former Energy Gallery and the 2015 exhibition\u00a0Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age.<\/p>\n The end of the partnership follows years of criticism<\/a> of the museum\u2019s relationships with fossil fuel companies. More recently, teachers have pledged to boycott school trips<\/a> to the museum until it ends its partnerships with BP and Adani, with the campaign backed by the National Education Union (NEU).<\/p>\n Adani Green Energy sponsors the museum\u2019s Energy Revolution gallery and is part of the wider Adani Group<\/a>, the Indian conglomerate which is the world’s largest private developer of coal mines.<\/p>\n Daniel Selwyn, a geography teacher and member of the NEU campaign supporting the boycott, says BP\u2019s sponsorship had been a \u201cshameful stain on its reputation for too long\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis victory has only happened because of the persistent and principled resistance of students, teachers, scientists and the wider community,\u201d Selwyn says. \u201cThis summer holiday from school has been defined by apocalyptic scenes of glacial collapses, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires. Evidently it has finally become untenable for the Science Museum to partner with one of the primary arsonists of the climate breakdown we are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Garrard from the campaign group Culture Unstained also welcomed the announcement, saying the museum had \u201cfinally come to its senses\u201d. \u201cThe Science Museum\u2019s director passionately championed his partnership with the major polluter year after year,\u201d Garrard adds, framing the end of the BP partnership as only a \u201cpartial victory\u201d while the museum\u2019s relationship with Adani continues.<\/p>\n The controversy over fossil fuel sponsorship has previously prompted high-profile departures at the Science Museum. In 2021, the mathematician and broadcaster Hannah Fry and the scientist Jo Foster resigned from SMG\u2019s board of trustees following discussions over the decision to accept sponsorship from Adani Green Energy. The climate scientist and former Science Museum director Chris Rapley also resigned from the Science Museum Advisory Board over its willingness to accept oil and gas sponsorship.<\/p>\n The museum\u2019s sustainability policy assesses sponsors\u2019 progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. The international climate treaty, adopted in 2015, mandates that signatories commit to holding global warming to well below 2\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5\u00b0C.<\/p>\n In 2024, the Science Museum was forced to end its sponsorship agreement with the Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor after internal correspondence showed that the fossil fuel company\u2019s business plans failed to align with the Paris Agreement goals and therefore breached the museum\u2019s climate benchmarks.<\/p>\n The end of the BP partnership also comes amid a wider shift in the museum sector. Last October, members of the Museums Association approved a new code of ethics that calls on museums to \u201ctransition away\u201d from sponsorship by organisations involved in environmental harm, including fossil fuels, as well as human rights abuses.<\/p>\n Pressure will now remain on the Science Museum over its ongoing sponsorship agreement with Adani Green Energy.<\/p>\n The SMG cutting ties with BP leaves the British Museum<\/a> as the only major UK cultural institution still sponsored by the oil and gas company. In 2023, it announced a \u00a350m, ten-year partnership with BP<\/a> to support the museum\u2019s redevelopment programme, prompting protests and criticism from scientists and campaigners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Science Museum in London is ending its nearly 25-year relationship with BP following sustained pressure over its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1179034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[91894,30122,748,66738,393,4884,257,4842,101980,16,15],"class_list":["post-1179033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-arts-funding","tag-bp","tag-britain","tag-corporate-sponsors","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-london","tag-museums-heritage","tag-science-museum","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117190487096838880","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1179034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}