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The UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH) has released groundbreaking new guidance calling for exclusions on climate-harming advertising and sponsorships to protect health.
The new FPH briefing, cowritten with Adfree Cities, makes the public health case for the adoption of Low Carbon Advertising Policies in local authorities. The briefing calls for an end to advertising that promotes the most polluting companies and sectors, including fossil fuel companies, airlines and fossil fuel-powered cars, and provides guidance to councils on implementing this.
President of the Faculty of Public Health, Professor Kevin Fenton, said: “The Faculty of Public Health recognises the climate crisis as the greatest threat to human health this century, and we know that the use of fossil fuels has a devastating impact on the life chances of populations across the globe, including here in the UK."
"Advertising of fossil fuels and high-carbon products and commodities are exacerbating this already spiralling crisis, and this new briefing aims to support and empower local leaders to implement low-carbon advertising and sponsorship policies.”
Edinburgh and Sheffield City Councils are among those in the UK that have introduced Low Carbon Advertising and Sponsorship Policies. Edinburgh City Council’s world-leading policy will end adverts and sponsorships for fossil fuel companies, fossil fuel-powered cars, airlines, airports, all SUVs, cruise ships and arms companies across council-owned advertising sites and events.
Scottish Green Party Councillor Ben Parker, who spearheaded Edinburgh City Council’s policy, said: "Public bodies, including local authorities, have a duty to reduce carbon emissions and help tackle the climate and nature emergencies. It doesn't make sense to say that we take this responsibility seriously, but that, at the same time, we are happy to grant private companies access to public space to advertise products which undermine these efforts”.
“Regulation of adverts for harmful products such as alcohol and tobacco already exist, and it's high time that prohibitions for environmentally damaging products come into force too. Councils have a duty to keeping people safe, and this duty should extend across all aspects of their work, including corporate policies around advertising and sponsorship."
The FPH joins the Climate Change Committee, the UK House of Lords and even UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in marking high carbon advertising as a significant factor in exacerbating climate breakdown, officially marked by the World Health Organization as the biggest threat to global health worldwide.
The respected health body has previously published a position statement on fossil fuels which describes the harms and inequitable health impacts associated with these fuels, including those associated with air pollution, energy poverty and cold homes, and the central role of fossil fuels in driving the health harms caused by climate breakdown.
Just as health professionals were crucial in the eventual ban on tobacco marketing, the sector is a necessary and respected voice in ending health-harming high carbon advertisements. Medics in the Netherlands, Australia and Canada are strongly pushing forward policies to end fossil fuel advertising.
In October 2024, the British Medical Journal banned ads for fossil fuel financiers like Barclays and HSBC that finance fossil fuel companies, following calls from medical professionals. This follows the BMJ’s commitment to ban advertising and research funded by companies that produce fossil fuels in 2020.
Advertising plays a key role in influencing our social, physical and cultural environments. This includes promoting and normalising unhealthy commodities; those that impact our health directly, such as unhealthy food and diesel-powered vehicles, and indirectly, including fossil fuel companies and airlines whose emissions are contributing to global heating.
For example, exposure to SUV marketing causes an uptick in likelihood to buy an SUV, while marketing has been recognised as a major driver in overall growth in car size and weight associated with huge increases in emissions from cars.
Curbing high carbon advertising is a significant step forward for councils looking to address Commercial Determinants of Health to protect populations from health harms caused by commercial practices. Campaigners hope that the Faculty of Public Health's new guidance will unlock further action by local and national Government to curb these types of advertisements, which are incompatible with public health and climate objectives.
Andrew Simms, Director of the Badvertising campaign, said: “Burning fossil fuels is not only a real, live threat to the very basis of society due to climate breakdown, it kills millions through air pollution. Yet, by allowing advertising and sponsorship deals for heavily polluting products and lifestyles we actively promote this self-destruction. The message from health professionals is that prevention is better than unnecessary suffering, and tobacco-style controls on polluting ads is an immediate, common sense and low cost measure.”
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Briefing: https://www.fph.org.uk/media/51scxp3o/fph-low-carbon-advertising-and-sponsorship-policy.pdf
The new FPH brief is part of the health body's broader activities around fossil fuels and the Commercial Determinants of Health, following the FPH position paper on health and fossil fuels released in 2024.