The UK’s largest education union has backed a new boycott of the Science Museum over its sponsorship deals with oil company BP and Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of the conglomerate Adani Group with ties to weapons manufacturing. Groups representing scientists, workers in the culture sector, teachers and parents are calling on schools and those working in education to halt visits to the museum.
In February, following the election of US President Donald Trump, BP announced it was cutting investments in renewables and expanding its fossil fuel operations, the main driver of climate change. Adani Green Energy is a renewable energy company majority owned by the Adani Group, which is the world's largest private coal mine developer.
Adani Group also has a joint venture with the Israeli arms producer Elbit Systems, which produces drones and other weapons that are reportedly used by the Israeli military. Israel's military campaign in Gaza has continued to intensify in recent weeks, with the UN recently warning that Gaza’s entire 2.1 million population is at risk of famine.
Helen Tucker, a workplace representative for the National Education Union (NEU), was at the campaign's launch on Sunday outside the Science Museum. She tells The Art Newspaper that the NEU passed a motion at its conference in April signalling its support for teachers to now refuse to take 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 says. “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.”
She continues: “As educators, it is our responsibility 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 organisers reported that, on the first day of the ‘culture and education boycott’, four London schools committed to not sending school trips to the museum. The boycott statement says: “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.”
On Sunday parents and children demonstrated outside the Science Museum with a rally where speakers from the arts and culture organisations spoke to the crowd. Leila, a parent of two from London, said: “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.
“Watching the brutal bombing and killing of children this last year has been heartbreaking. And knowing that our public institutions are complicit in these attacks is terrible. How can a museum dedicated to science and innovation for young people take money earned from the sale of weapons used to kill thousands of children?”
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, in which, according to Israeli tallies, around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. More than 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza since that date, according to the territory's health ministry.
BP and Adani have not responded to The Art Newspaper’s request for comment.
A Science Museum Group spokesperson says: “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.
“We’re also 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.”
