Description

Who: Municipality of Liverpool, UK

What: Motion for low carbon ad policy passed unanimously.

When: January 2021


After Badvertising supporters in Liverpool wrote to their councillors using Adfree Cities' online tool, a motion was brought to a full Council meeting in January 2021 to implement a Low Carbon Advertising Policy. The Council voted to review its advertising policies in light of the climate emergency it had declared back in 2019 and committed to act up upon by bringing the city to net zero carbon by 2030.

A low-carbon advertising policy

On January 20th 2021, a motion for the city to introduce a low carbon advertising policy was unanimously passed at a Liverpool City Council meeting (see page 15 of these council minutes). The policy would form part of the Council’s planning policies and apply to advertising panels (ie. bus stops, billboards and advertising spaces) controlled by Liverpool City Council and the City Combined Region Authority.

The motion suggests that advertising should align with its own objectives around public health or environmental matters:

“This Council believes that –

the purpose of advertising is to stimulate demand for goods and services; and some advertising content undermines the council's objectives regarding public health, air pollution and sustainable consumption” 

It goes on to explicitly state that some of the products advertised in Liverpool directly undermine its climate targets:

“...petrol and diesel car adverts, especially for Sports Utility Vehicles, undermine air quality objectives and airline advertising undermines carbon emission targets”.

The motion retains the right for the council to review its current advertising concessions and to look into the possibility of amending the current set of restrictions - which are already in place for things such as tobacco products and e-cigarettes, guns and offensive weapons - so that it covers products which undermine Liverpool Council’s climate change and pollution policy goals.

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