Science Museum’s Equinor sponsorship ends

Geraldine Kendall Adams, Science Museum ends sponsorship deal with oil giant Equinor, Museums Association, 16 July 2024

Museum reportedly cut ties after corporation failed to meet climate goals.

Climate protesters stage a demonstration outside the Science Museum over its sponsorship deal with Equinor Culture Unstained.

The Science Museum in London has brought its longrunning sponsorship deal with the Norwegian oil giant, Equinor, to a close.

The corporation, formerly known as Statoil, has been the sponsor of the museum’s Wonderlab children’s gallery since it opened in 2016.

The museum’s chair, Tim Laurence, originally announced the end of the deal in a blog post published on 28 June.

Laurence said: “Equinor’s sponsorship of the museum has drawn to a close at the end of their current contract term.

“Their contribution has been enormously important to us and has helped inspire hundreds of thousands of young potential engineers and scientists.

“The partnership concludes with our warm appreciation and with our ongoing encouragement to Equinor to continue to raise the bar in their efforts to put in place emissions reduction targets aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5°C.”

Laurence’s announcement comes after emails obtained by the anti-fossil fuel group Culture Unstained under the Freedom of Information Act show that Science Museum Group (SMG) director Ian Blatchford told Equinor in 2022 that it was in breach of the museum’s pledge to ensure its sponsors complied with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

In a letter the same year, SMG chair Mary Archer confirmed that the institution would begin a “process of disengagement” with sponsors that fell short of its climate benchmarks.

Pressure had also been growing on the museum to drop Equinor as a sponsor due to its plans to develop the Rosebank oil and gas field, the biggest undeveloped field in the North Sea.

The project was given the go-ahead by the UK Government in 2022, but environmental campaigners warn it will produce more than 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, as well as damaging marine life and habitat.

Climate campaigners have hailed the end of the deal as a “seismic shift” in the museum’s approach to sponsorship.

Sarah Waldron, the co-director of Culture Unstained, said: “After years of mounting pressure, the Science Museum has now adopted red lines on climate change which have led to Equinor being dropped.”

However Waldron criticised the timing of the announcement, which came days before the UK General Election on 4 July.

She said: “Rather than proudly telling the world that it took action because its sponsor was flouting climate targets backed by governments around the world, the museum continues to push the false narrative that its polluting sponsors are leading the energy transition.”

She called on the SMG to drop its ongoing sponsorship arrangements with BP and Adani Green Energy.

Waldon said: “The museum must now hold these companies to the same standard and stop promoting their toxic brands.”

The Science Museum Group has strenuously defended its sponsorship arrangements.

In the same blog post, Laurence wrote: “As a board we do not agree with those who say we should rule out accepting sponsorship from all companies involved in fossil fuel extraction. After all, they have both the expertise and the wealth to solve the problems that fossil fuels have created.

“We believe in constructive engagement with companies that will be key in making the global economy less carbon intensive. Those with whom we partner must demonstrate that they are moving with sufficient urgency along the transition pathway to match our aspirations.”

Laurence highlighted the importance of sponsorship to improving the visitor experience at the museum over the past decade, saying he had been impressed “to discover that not a penny of the £95m invested in transforming many of the Science Museum’s galleries in the past decade came from taxpayers”.

The development comes amid an intensifying debate over fossil fuel sponsorship in the culture sector, after the investment firm Baillie Gifford, which has interests in fossil fuel, announced earlier this year that it would no longer sponsor literary festivals, following protests by authors and others in the publishing industry.

Environmental campaigners welcomed the development but some cultural commentators have warned that loss of such sponsors could put the sustainability of the culture sector at risk.

Former British Museum director, Mark Jones, recently sparked debate by calling for the reintroduction of entry fees at national museums, saying this could help to resolve some of the challenges they face around sponsorship.