Every day, Reint Jan Rennes walks from the royal main station in the Dutch capital Amsterdam to his office through the city’s tree-lined canals. He often finds walking frustrating.
“We have this very, very beautiful old town, and you really have to look at all the signs that try to sell you something,” said Raines, a behavioral psychologist who researches sustainability in cities.
It is not that advertisements in a picturesque place can be an eyesore. For Rennes, there is an inherent tension between Amsterdam’s ambitious climate policy to become completely carbon neutral by 2050 and advertisements for cars and burgers, among other products, crowding the city’s streets.
Burning fossil fuels is one of the major drivers of climate change, with transportation, including cars, aviation and shipping, accounting for about a quarter of global emissions. meat and dairy Food-related are responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions.
“The moment you really take your own climate policy seriously, you should at least restrict the availability of all promotional materials where they just try to promote and normalize these high-carbon lifestyles,” Rennes, who lectures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, told DW.
Amsterdam has done just that, becoming the first capital city in the world to ban advertising for meat and fossil fuel products, including home gas-heating contracts, flying, cruise and combustion engine vehicles.
And it’s not just Amsterdam. Sweden’s capital Stockholm will follow suit this summer and more than 50 other cities around the world have similar restrictions, including Sydney in Australia, The Hague in the Netherlands and Florence in Italy. In 2022, France became the first country to ban fossil fuel advertising nationwide; Spain could be next.
“What these pioneering cities do is force other cities to reflect, ‘Hey, you know what? How we organize our city is not necessarily how it should be,'” said Jan Willem Bolderdijk, a professor of sustainability and marketing at the University of Amsterdam.
Why ban fossil fuel advertisements?
Advertisements for fossil fuel products are everywhere. Big oil and gas companies spend billions of dollars sponsoring sports leagues, funding museums, and paying influencers to plug things like gas station rewards cards on TikTok, because advertising works when it’s good.
Researchers from environmental NGO Greenpeace Netherlands and the New Weather Institute estimatedCar and airline advertising alone may have been responsible for 122 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU in 2019 – more than Belgian emissions in a year.
The thinking behind the ban is that it eliminates companies’ ability to promote carbon-intensive products like SUVs and flights and could help change “attitudes toward fossil fuel consumption,” the Greenpeace report said. This will in turn help cut emissions.
This is a page from the same public policy playbook that was used to curb smoking in the late 20th century, when its health harms were clearly understood. A ReviewGlobal restrictions on tobacco advertising found that the policies were associated with a 20% lower likelihood of current smoking and a 37% lower risk among first-time smokers.
Governments are applying the same logic to fossil fuel advertising, because burning oil, coal and gas harms the climate and public health, for example, air pollution, which is linked to millions of premature deaths globally each year.
But it’s not as simple as emissions-adjusting calculations for governments.
Bolderdijk said, “Will banning this advertising change behavior overnight? Well, the answer is no.” “It took decades for these types of consumption norms to emerge.”
Supporters argue that the advertising ban begins to erode those norms and influence other governments to follow suit.
This is a controversy that the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith described in the late 1950s as the ‘dependence effect’ – the idea that advertising creates artificial desires or desires we did not already have for products and experiences we do not necessarily need, such as a very large car.
“We have now adopted a relatively carbon-intensive lifestyle, and this lifestyle has been partly normalized and created by advertising, which for decades has made us feel like we can only be happy by flying or taking a cruise ship,” Bolderijk said.
Why are critics not convinced about the ban?
Not everyone is happy with Amsterdam’s decision. Businesses are losing profits. According to investigative climate outlet JCDeCox, the world’s largest outdoor advertising operator, tried to lobby against the Amsterdam ban, warning of “far-reaching financial and legal consequences.” desmog. Conservative Dutch MPs have also criticized the policy as restricting freedoms.
Dutch travel industry groups recently sued The Hague, arguing that the 2024 ban violates free speech, conflicts with EU trade law, and exceeds the city’s authority.
A Dutch court rejected those arguments and upheld the ban, ruling that commercial advertising falls outside constitutional free speech protections, that climate and health goals justify restrictions on trade, and that advertisers’ commercial interests do not outweigh citizens’ general health interests.
There are limitations to such policies. The Amsterdam ban, which came into effect on May 1, applies to all advertising on city-controlled infrastructure. This includes 1,350 bus shelter panels, 225 screens at metro stations and 470 freestanding panels, often visible on footpaths.
What it does not ban is private property; According to the city council policy document, shop owners are still able to promote products outside their premises in a “limited” manner. This also leaves digital spaces untouched, where most advertising now appears.
Others have criticized the ban as purely “symbolic” politics. Experts say that merely banning advertising will not change things.
But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading body of climate scientists, estimates that “demand-side changes,” meaning consumer habits and lifestyle adjustments, could reduce global emissions by 40% to 70% by 2050. People just need the right policies, infrastructure and technology to facilitate those changes.
“This is really a package of interventions that together can change these carbon-intensive social norms,” Bolderdijk said. “And this fossil advertising ban is just one of many measures that are needed.”
Edited by: Jennifer Collins
If you want to hear more about fossil fuel advertising bans and the psychology behind advertising, check out This episode of DW’s Living Planet podcast.