In September, as the UK government introduced sanctions on trade in illegal Israeli settlements, young people and teachers took action at a Science Museum ‘Star Trek Lates’ event to urge the Museum to end its relationship with the Adani Group, which produces weapons implicated in genocide in Gaza.
The protest at the Museum’s ‘Star Trek Late’ event comes just days after the Science Museum ended its 25 year partnership with oil and gas producer BP. Adani’s annual investors conference in London was also hit by protests with campaigners dressed in evening gowns targeting the event’s cocktail reception.
Members of youth climate justice action group Generation 1.5 took action during a Star Trek themed ‘Lates’ event at the Science Museum to expose the Museum’s sponsor, Adani, a coal producer and weapons manufacturer. During the event they chanted and threw black confetti over the main hall of the museum, alongside a banner drop reading “SCIENCE MUSEUM: DROP ADANI”
Lily, 17 said:
“The Science Museum is putting our future and the lives of children around the world on the line with their continued sponsorship by Adani. As the generation who will inherit this future that is being systematically destroyed by fossil fuel giants such as Adani, we refuse to stay silent.”
Wren, 17 added:
“This sponsorship allows Adani to continue greenwashing their dirty profits. Their profits come from coal production, human rights abuses and the systematic murder of Palestinians. We will continue to take action until this blatant greenwashing ends.”
Read more about their actions and view photos.
Teachers, who are organising a boycott of the Museum over its toxic sponsorship, had earlier unfurled a banner following an event for teachers at the Museum.
Daniel Selwyn, a teacher and member of the NEU campaign supporting the boycott, said:
“Ending the partnership with BP last week was a positive step for the Science Museum. If the Science Museum was truly committed to our existential struggle for a habitable planet, it would immediately drop the sponsorship of the world’s largest private coal company Adani, which also supplies drones to the Israel while it commits a genocide in Palestine. We will continue to oppose this collaboration, as educators, trade unionists, and ordinary members of the public, until Adani’s dirty money is dropped.”
Passed as a motion at its 2025 conference, the NEU backs calls for schools, teachers and educators to halt school trips to the Science Museum and refuse engagement with its academies while Adani remains a sponsor. On 9 November, the London Regional Authority of the NEU will vote on a boycott motion backing colleagues across every London borough who refuse to take school trips to the Science Museum.
Adani’s presence in the UK was also hit by protests as it held a meeting for its Annual Conference at the Grosvenor Park Hotel in Mayfair this week. On Monday evening, as investors gathered for a cocktail reception, campaigners dressed in evening gowns urged them to ‘Drop Adani’s Blood Money’ with a banner reminding them of the firm’s complicity in human rights violations, fraud, bribery, climate destruction and genocide
FOI documents uncovered by Culture Unstained reveal that the Science Museum’s Director, Ian Blatchford had pitched sponsorship of the Museum’s Green Energy gallery to Adani as offering the conglomerate the “strongest global profiling opportunity”, and how the sponsorship deal was used to facilitate meetings between Adani and the UK government. Adani is reported to now be considering a bid to gain control of the UK’s biggest port company, Associated British Ports.
Praveen Kumar from India Labour Solidarity said:
“Adani can pay for gallery space at the Science Museum and put on a polished show for investors, but no amount of greenwashing or spin can hide what this empire is built on. In India, the workers, students, journalists and organisers resisting Adani group are branded criminals, jailed on fabricated conspiracy charges, and smeared as threats to the nation. Their model of profit depends on silencing the very people it exploits. We stand in solidarity with every activist criminalised for defending labour, land and access to natural resources. Adani’s money will not buy our silence.”
Adani’s links to the genocide in Gaza
Adani operates a joint venture with Israeli weapons producer Elbit Systems, producing the Hermes 900 drone used in the genocide in Palestine. Adani also has a joint venture with Israel Weapon Industries, PLR Systems, developing and manufacturing assault and sniper rifles and machine guns, which, according to Amnesty International, risks complicity in serious violations of international humanitarian law. Adani Ports also holds a controlling stake in the Israeli port of Haifa, a key port for the supply of fuel and weapons to Israel.
Adani and coal production
Adani is also the world’s largest private producer of coal, which it extracts by denying Indigenous peoples the rights to their lands. Despite the company’s attempts to “greenwash” the appearance of its business portfolio – not least by sponsoring the Science Museum’s ‘Energy Revolution’ gallery – it is currently implementing a massive expansion in its thermal coal production and coal-fired power capacity – which it plans to double to 45GW.
Adani and the Great Nicobar mega-development
Adani is reported to be a leading contender to develop a $10 billion mega-development on the Great Nicobar and Andaman Islands, which Survival International warns will devastate the Indigenous Shompen people and the islands’ fragile ecosystem. In August, the UN urged India to suspend the project, while 39 international genocide scholars have warned that the project threatens to wipe out the Shompen people on Great Nicobar island
Adani and corruption
Adani has faced multiple investigations into corruption in its business. In 2023 Hindenburg Research published an investigation into alleged stock market manipulation, accusing Adani of the “the biggest con in corporate history.”
In November 2024, Gautam Adani, billionaire Chair of the Adani Group, as well as two executives from Adani Green Energy were indicted by a US Court, with an arrest warrant issued for Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, Executive Director at Adani Green Energy – whose name adorns the Science Museum’s Energy Revolution gallery. The filings made by US prosecutors alleged that the Adanis had mounted a $265 million bribery scheme in a bid to secure lucrative renewable energy contracts, and had misled investors as to Adani’s adherence to anti-bribery practices.
Parts of the indictment were controversially dismissed last month, when a US judge agreed to a DOJ request to drop the charges against the Adani’s, while describing the Deputy Attorney General’s conduct as “highly unusual” and “unbecoming of his office.” Sagar Adani gave the opening address at the Adani Conference in London on Monday.
