Is time up for fossil fuel sponsorship of arts events?

Compared with the soup-throwing or road-blocking actions of climate change activists such as Just Stop Oil, complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) about the fossil fuel industry’s sponsorship of arts events is a fairly genteel way to go about it. Still it makes a point.

In the latest ASAI bulletin, a member of the public took issue with the Flogas sponsorship at last year’s Galway International Arts Festival. Advertisements talked about the festival being powered by Flogas Green Energy but an eagle-eyed attendee noted that a venue had a diesel generator “which could not be considered green energy”. The ASAI upheld the complaint – which won’t have much effect as the three-year sponsorship, for an undisclosed sum, ended last year.

It might, though, add to the chill winds blowing in the direction of energy companies looking to the arts to burnish their brands.

The two-part complaint to the ASAI also objected to the slogan stating the festival was “greener than ever”. Flogas put up a robust defence, arguing, among other things, that the solar panels powering the festival garden and reusable cups and e-bikes meant the claim was accurate. The ASAI agreed. It was indeed “greener” in that there were new environmentally-positive initiatives and so it ticked the advertising watchdog’s boxes.

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However, such letter-of-the law relativism will is unlikely to have pleased the complainant whose points more than hinted at the bigger issue of greenwashing.

Events in London last month show how inflammatory fossil fuel industry sponsorship has become and how quickly protesters can affect change. Comedian Joe Lycett pulled out of the British LGBT Awards, where he had been nominated for his “shred £10,000″ protest against David Beckham’s involvement with the Qatar World Cup. Other entertainers followed suit. Climate campaigners had said they would protest against the event over sponsorship deals with oil giants Shell and BP. The awards’ organisers dropped the sponsorships. Campaigners had talked about not allowing fossil fuel companies to “greenwash and rainbow wash their brands”.

In Australia, umbrella group Comms Declare, which had lobbied for the end to Chevron’s sponsorship of the National Australia Day, took it as a win when the energy company did not renew its sponsorship in 2023, saying its aim “is to see advertising and sponsorship laws for fossil fuel companies become as restrictive as those placed on tobacco companies decades ago, with sporting, arts and cultural organisations being a priority”.

In the UK the long list of big cultural organisations breaking ties with big oil was extended earlier this year when BP’s 27-year sponsorship of the British Museum came to an end.

All this suggests that the Texaco Children’s Art Competition’s long-term future surely can’t be as assured as its longevity might suggest.

Even saying that is a bit like kicking a puppy, so beloved, or at least entrenched in Irish culture, is the young people’s art competition, which is nearing its 70th year. The annual showcase for extraordinary young talent receives considerable media coverage which must please US oil giant Valero, owner of the Texaco brand in Ireland. So while schools proudly raise green flags and implement environmentally responsive polices, the steady stream of entries into the competition would suggest perhaps that over time the four words – Texaco Children’s Art Competition – have so seamlessly fused that the link between the competition and big oil hasn’t, as yet, hit its young target market with a climate awareness thud.

There are, though, activists driving moves in that direction. Environmentalist Tom Roche has long had the Texaco competition in his sights as, he says, an example of artwashing that targets young people, and he lobbies on multiple fronts, including venues involved with the competition.

Last year, in a significant move, Imma, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, which had hosted exhibitions of prize-winning entries, ended its involvement with the competition, saying the association with Texaco had come to a natural end. Similarly the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, also a venue to show winning entries, has severed its connection.

At the coalface of this debate in Ireland is Business to Arts, the organisation that promotes corporate sponsorship of the always cash-strapped arts. It has advised on sponsorship policies that, according to its chief executive Louise O’Reilly, “are seeking ways to navigate ethical partnership assessment”. She adds, “hard lines are being drawn more frequently on this particular topic”.

She came to the organisation from the Science Gallery, which had a policy that precluded any direct relationship with a fossil fuel company, but says that “it actively engaged with many other potential problematic partners without any issue in terms of critiquing or exploring challenging topics for a corporate entity”.

Pragmatically, or maybe realistically, O’Reilly says: “It can be tricky if you pull the thread and start to examine what fossil fuels can be used for, or who may invest in them.”

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She notes that Bord Gáis Energy is one of her organisation’s 60-plus business members – its name is above the door in one of the country’s largest performance spaces – and that ESB is a significant sponsor of the arts in Ireland, “one who is enlightened and credible in their vision for what corporate support for the arts can look like”.

For its part, Flogas says it is waiting for the ASAI and the Commission for Regulation of Utilities to clarify how energy suppliers “who choose to support renewable energy generation can promote their products and clearly differentiate them from those of suppliers who do not”.

Given the growing negativity against the entire industry, the “how” in that sounds like a mammoth task.

[ Greenwashing firms and public entities face growing threat of litigation ]