Description
What: City of Delft passes a motion to ban fossil ads through the ordinance
Which fossil ads: air and cruise travel, cars with a fossil fuel engine, fossil fueled home energy, fossil fuels
When: adopted: 22 May 2025 | reaction of the alderman due: december 2025 | enforced: ?
Delft (NL) bans fossil ads through ordinance
The Delft city council has passed a motion to ban fossil advertising through the advertising ordinance. This makes Delft the third municipality in the world to ban fossil advertising through local law.
“The municipality sets goals for health and climate,” says the motion’s initiator, Rinske Wessels (GroenLinks), “but in the meantime, you see advertising everywhere on the street for products and services that actually worsen our health and climate problems. With this motion, we have asked the executive board to at least set limits on fossil advertising. Fortunately, a majority of our council in Delft agrees with this.”
Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising) is pleased with the advertising ban in Delft. “Now that the court has made it crystal clear that municipalities are fully entitled to ban climate-damaging advertisements, more municipalities will follow,” expects Femke Sleegers of Reclame Fossielvrij.
Wessels states that a national ban on fossil advertising would be best. “But that has not yet been taken up. That’s why it is all the more important that we as municipalities take local responsibility for a healthy, sustainable, and fair society.”
The motion was submitted by GroenLinks, Volt, PvdA, and STIP and had a broad majority: 26 votes in favor and 12 against. The motion asks the alderman to report back before the end of the year on how and when Delft will implement the ban. Last year, the alderman already promised that digital billboards and A0 boards in Delft would be free of fossil advertising.
With this, Delft follows the example of The Hague and Utrecht. The Hague was the first city in the world to ban advertising through the General Local Regulation (APV). The travel industry then filed a lawsuit. However, the court sided with the municipality of The Hague on all points: a municipality may impose restrictions on advertisements if they harm public interests such as health and climate. Utrecht then banned fossil advertising through the APV.
Zwolle had previously passed a motion to ban fossil advertising via the APV. The executive board rejected that motion. It is now up to the city council to take a follow-up step. 1 in 20 municipalities wants to ban fossil advertising, such as Amsterdam and Tilburg. In Haarlem, all fossil advertisements will disappear from the streets as of January 1, 2026.
