We support a boycott of the Science Museum over BP and Adani
13 Jun 2025
We are supporting a cultural and education boycott of the Science Museum in light of the museum’s continuing sponsorship by Adani and BP – major fossil fuel producers which are complicit in the genocide of Palestinian people.
The boycott is being organised by Culture Unstained, Parents for Palestine and Education Climate Coalition, and is supported by a broad coalition of worker groups across education and the arts, including the National Education Union.
Adani, an arms manufacturing conglomerate and the world’s biggest private producer of coal, is the named sponsor of the Science Museum’s climate and energy gallery. The company has a history of violating Indigenous rights throughout its operations, and it produces weapons with Elbit Systems which have been used by the Israeli military in the violent genocide of Palestinian people.
BP is the sponsor of the Science Museum’s STEM Academy which trains teachers and science educators. BP remains one of the world’s biggest polluters and producers of oil and gas, with ongoing impacts from its oil spills and gas flaring felt by communities around the world. It is also supplying fuel to the Israeli military and directly profiting from the genocide in Palestine.
We call on our community of artists, performers, musicians, and culture workers to refuse to contribute to events and activities with the museum whilst Adani and BP remain sponsors. We know that many of you are already doing so.
The museum’s sponsors seek social legitimacy from the culture sector in order to bolster their public image, whilst continuing destructive business activities in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities and ecosystems.
We are not against all forms of sponsorship and philanthropy. But we are against blatant irony and greenwashing. We want to nourish a culture sector that embodies the values it seeks to spark in people – curiosity, care and wonder for the world. The Science Museum can do better than this.
On our website we have a step-by-step guide to help with decisions around ethical funding – see here.
