Description
Who: Municipality of Eindhoven, the Netherlands
What: An adopted motion to investigate banning fossil fuel advertising in the city through contracts with advertising operators
When: May 2024
A motion by liberal party D66 to ban fossil advertising through private law - i.e. through contracts - was adopted by the Eindhoven city council. An initiative proposal by other parties to ban fossil advertisements and meat advertisements by local law narrowly failed.
The initiative proposal had been submitted by the local council members of the Dutch Animal Party, Labour Party, Green Party and Volt. D66 could have helped the proposal gain a majority, but voted against it. Instead, the party tabled a motion to ban fossil advertising through the private law route. Alderman Esselbrugge (also D66) had earlier indicated a preference for this.
Most contracts in Eindhoven do not expire until the end of this decade. It remains to be seen whether the future city board will then keep its promise to include it in the contracts. After all, as recently as 2021, the Socialist Party and the Green Party withdrew their motion to ban fossil advertising after the then alderman promised to pass this mandate on to the next alderman. However, the contracts were already renewed at the time of the municipal elections in 2022 without the council's knowledge and without a ban on fossil advertising being part of the new contracts.
