After announcement of a donation of £50 million from BP to the British Museum, earmarked to fund the museum’s renovation plan, Greenpeace has put out a statement calling the new sponsorship deal between the venerable cultural institution and the oil company ‘what must surely be one of the biggest, most brazen greenwashing sponsorship deals the sector has ever seen.’
The British Museum’s decision to accept the donation, which the museum says it is the single biggest corporate donation to the arts in the UK, goes against the tide of arts and cultural institutions divesting from fossil fuel money. In June this year, the British Museum suggested that it will end a 27-year-long sponsorship by BP, only to now double down on its unpopular relationship with the Big Oil company. Less than a year prior to that, the chair of trustees, former Conservative chancellor George Osborne, has said in a speech that ‘Our goal is to be a net zero carbon museum – no longer a destination for climate protest but instead an example of climate solution’.
In their reaction to today’s announcement, Greenpeace UK’s policy director, Doug Parr, said: ‘The arts and culture world has been steadily cutting ties with Big Oil, after realising the handy role they play in cleaning up their climate-wrecking image,’ adding that ‘No cultural establishment that has a responsibility to educate and inform should be allowing fossil fuel companies to pay them to clean their image, not least the British Museum who have been here before.’ He ends by asking, ‘Did they learn nothing?’
