- A new wave of action by a broad coalition of museum stakeholders centres Adani and BP’s ‘complicity in genocide in Palestine’ alongside climate concerns.
- The stronger stance by stakeholders follows recent revelations about benefits of sponsorship to BP and Adani’s business influence.
- Parents and children held a creative protest at the Great Exhibition Road festival outside Science Museum to launch the boycott.
- Following the NEU’s commitment to boycott the Science Museum in a conference motion passed in April, schools and educators pledge to ‘press pause’ on school trips.
Unions and groups representing scientists, teachers, parents and workers in the arts have called for those working in education and culture sectors to join a boycott of the Science Museum to demand an end to the Museum’s ongoing sponsorship arrangements with fossil fuel producers BP and Adani.
A statement from the organisers, which includes Parents for Palestine, Education Climate Coalition and Culture Unstained and several worker-led groups, says:
“We – teachers, lecturers, educators and parents – urge our schools and universities not to bring student groups to the Science Museum while Adani and BP remain sponsors.
We – writers, academics, performers, artists, scientists, musicians, culture workers – refuse to contribute to Science Museum events and activities and will refuse contracts with the museum…
We are calling for a full educational, cultural and academic boycott of the Science Museum until Adani and BP are dropped as sponsors.”
The boycott has support from the NEU, the UK’s largest education union, which passed a motion at its conference in April signalling its support for teachers to refuse to take school trips to the Science Museum until its fossil fuel sponsors are dropped. On the first day of the boycott, the organisers reported that twofour schoolshave already acted by pledging not to send school trips to the museum.
Helen Tucker, NEU Green Representative said:
“How can any teacher feel comfortable engaging in any educational activity sponsored by BP while it is ramping up its fossil fuel extraction at the same time as reducing its investment in renewable energy. On the one hand we are teaching students about climate change and how to navigate an increasingly uncertain future while effectively condoning the actions of one of the of the top 20 companies found to be drivers of our climate catastrophe. We would be horrified if students attended a programme sponsored by a tobacco company – we need to now remove the social licence of companies like BP and Adani who are also complicit in the Gaza Palestine genocide”.
Meanwhile, several organisations representing culture-sector workers have given their backing to the boycott, including the performance union Equity’s environmental working group Equity for a Green New Deal and Artists & Culture Workers London.
To launch the boycott, parents and children demonstrated outside the Science Museum on Sunday 8th June, making an unsanctioned intervention in the Great Exhibition Road festival.
Participants held two large banners outside the Museum entrance amid the busy street festival, reading ‘Boycott the Science Museum’ and ‘The Science Museum is complicit in genocide’.
Parents for Palestine held creative workshops and children’s activities.
Speakers from the organisations including NEU, Parents for Future, India Labour Solidarity, Culture Unstained and Parents for Palestine spoke to a crowd,
Leila, a parent of two from London said:
“My kids and I love visiting the Science Museum, and I was shocked to learn that it has accepted money from a company involved in the manufacture and sale of weapons to Israel. Watching the brutal bombing and killing of children this last year has been heartbreaking. And knowing that our public institutions are complicit in these attacks is terrible. How can a museum dedicated to science and innovation for young people take money earned from the sale of weapons used to kill thousands of children?.”
The ‘Culture and Education boycott’ aims to put pressure on the Museum by impacting its school trips bookings and by impacting participation in the museum’s speaker and performance events, such as its series of ‘Late’ openings. Fossil Free Science Museum’s statement explains why this tactic has become necessary:
“It is no longer a Science Museum but a corporate mouthpiece. For seven years the Museum’s upper management and trustees have dismissed or ignored legitimate interventions from teachers, scientists, parents, and culture workers demanding fossil free sponsorship. They refuse to be constructively engaged. Now is the time to vote with our feet and refuse to work with the museum in these capacities. Now is the time to withdraw our participation.”
Over the last few years the Science Museum has seen numerous high profile cultural figures pull out of their ‘Lates’ events and other event programming, including Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall, Robin Ince, and most recently, violinist Emma Welton from the group Icebreaker, who stated:
“London’s Science Museum and Icebreaker have collaborated on several projects over a period of 15 years. It can be a museum of international standing and high curatorial, educational and ethical standards. However, the Museum has compromised those standards through its choice of partners. I ask the Science Museum Group to abandon the partnerships with Adani and BP and return to its ethical principles.”
Adani is the world’s biggest private producer of coal, and also produces weapons in a joint venture with the Israeli arms producer Elbit systems which are used by the Israeli military and have been implicated in the genocide of the Palestinian people.
It is also alleged that BP is implicated in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza as part of a lawsuit brought by Palestinians which identifies BP’s oil pipeline as a major source of fuel to Israel’s military.
Documents unearthed and made public by investigative journalism outlet DeSmog just a few weeks ago have shed light on the tangible benefits that BP gains from such sponsorship agreements.
Dr. Chris Garrard, Co-Director of Culture Unstained added:
“These sponsorship deals are not acts of generous philanthropy, they are part of calculated and cynical strategies designed to further the destructive practices of both Adani and BP – which is why they must end. We know BP sees the institutions it sponsors as simply a means to acquire ‘enablers and supporters’ for its climate-wrecking business plans and as a platform to ‘access high-level decision-makers’. The Museum has happily played this role for Adani too, by facilitating a meeting in its building between CEO Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Boris Johnson off the back of the sponsorship deal. Far from being an independent institution, the Science Museum has actively aided covert lobbying by a company that is continuing to expand its coal and weapons businesses.”
Adani, already the world’s biggest private producer of coal, is in the process of doubling the size of its coal extraction empire. Meanwhile grave human rights concerns have been raised about its coal expansion in India, as well as its production of Hermes 900 drones for Israel in its joint venture with Elbit Systems. In a subsequent meeting with Boris Johnson, Adani requested his support in becoming ‘the BAE [Systems] of India’.
The Science Museum recently defended both companies in response to widespread condemnation of BP’s ‘reset’, in which it axed its zero-carbon ambitions, and in the wake of Adani’s bribery and fraud scandal.
Former Labour MEP and Freelance art consultant Julie Ward, said:
“We need all our cultural institutions to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and the arms industry. The Science Museum should be leading the way, not dragging its heels regarding the threat to a sustainable future for all living things. The scientific evidence regarding the negative impact of fossil fuels is overwhelming. For a Science Museum to ignore the evidence shows weak leadership and poor governance.”
The boycott is organised by Fossil Free Science Museum, whose members Parents for Palestine (schools’ boycott), Culture Unstained (culture workers’ boycott) and Educators Climate Coalition (educators’ boycott) are hosting and disseminating online pledges to boycott the Science Museum under a co-ordinated umbrella of a ‘culture and education boycott’.
Culture Unstained 