The sponsorship deals between London’s Science Museum and oil giant BP and Adani Green Energy have been put into sharp focus after the UK’s largest education union backed a boycott of the cultural institution.
National Education Union (NEU) representatives were outside the Science Museum on Sunday to support cultural sector workers, scientists, teachers, and parents calling for people to stop visiting the museum.
They argue that that the museum should cut ties with BP, which announced that it was slashing investments in green energy and growing its fossil fuel production following Donald Trump’s election in January.
Renewable energy company Adani Green Energy is a subsidiary of Adani Group, the world’s largest private coal mine developer. It also makes weapons and ammunition, and Israeli businesses and the Israel Defense Forces are among its customers. Campaigners are demanding that the Science Museum distances itself from Adani as a result.
At the Sunday protest, one parent reportedly told a crowd: “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.”
Helen Tucker, a workplace representative for the NEU, told the Art Newspaper that the union passed a motion at its conference last April confirming its support for teachers to refuse taking students on school trips to the museum.
“Teachers should ask themselves whether they can, in good conscience, show their students an exhibition on the climate crisis influenced by those that are actively causing it,” she said. “Helping companies like Adani and BP to pull the wool over our eyes is not contributing to our children’s education but is doing them a grave disservice.”
Tucker added that it is the responsibility of educators to “resist the greenwashing and image laundering of those destroying our children’s futures. At the very least, we can refuse to actively contribute to it. After all, a boycott is one of the most passive political acts we can use to effect change.”
The campaign reported that four London schools have so far committed to not take pupils on trips to the Science Museum. “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,” a campaign statement reads.
In a statement, the Science Museum said: “We’re proud to deliver free and inspirational experiences to hundreds of thousands of school children every year as well as providing research-informed training and resources to teachers, museum and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) professionals through the Science Museum Group Academy. This vital work is made possible by funding we receive from a wide range of supporters.”
It added that it was “pleased to have welcomed more than half a million visitors to our Energy Revolution gallery about the urgent energy transition the world needs to see, made possible by generous sponsorship from Adani Green Energy, a major renewable energy business.”
Other major UK museums have previously been criticized for their sources of funding. At the end of 2023, the British Museum entered into a new agreement which resulted in BP providing it with £50 million ($63.3 million) over the next decade. British Museum trustees were concerned about accepting sponsorship deal, despite behind-the-scenes ethical and safety concerns from trustees. Last year, it was reported that the museum also purchased 2,420 Japanese artifacts with tobacco company funding.
