$275 million pledged to help cut fossil fuel sponsorships and boost renewables’ visibility
Climate communications group Comms Declare has welcomed a landmark proposal from the Australian Greens that would help clean energy companies replace fossil fuel sponsors across Australian sport, culture, and education.
The Australian Greens Powering Past Coal and Gas plan includes a $275 million fund to help groups cut ties with legacy climate polluters.
Comms Declare founder, Belinda Noble, said, “It’s great news for communities and the environment that groups such as our beloved Wallabies Rugby Union team and Western Australia’s nipper program will no longer have to be billboards for our biggest climate polluters.”
“Marketing and sponsorships are important drivers of community consumption, and should be assisting the clean, green economy of the future, not fossil fuels.”
The Greens’ proposal includes a national ban on fossil fuel advertising and sponsorships, building on existing tobacco legislation and new international precedents.
Fossil fuel marketing is on borrowed time:
- Groups that have parted ways with fossil fuel sponsors include the Walkley Foundation, Questacon, Australian Open, Darwin Festival, and the Australia Day Committee
- United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has called on all governments to ban fossil fuel advertising
- More than 40 jurisdictions globally have supported some form of fossil fuel and/or high carbon advertising restrictions including France, Edinburgh, Toronto, Amsterdam and The Hague
- The ACT has banned fossil fuel ads on its trams and has passed a policy to stop fossil fuel sponsorships in schools
- 18 Australian councils, including the City of Sydney, have supported fossil fuel marketing restrictions on their land or at their events.
