Low carbon advertising policies: a toolkit for local policymakers

Fossil fuel companies, car companies and airlines spend billions each year advertising their high carbon products - despite growing public concerns over air pollution, public health and climate breakdown. This toolkit is for local authority councilors and officers in the UK wishing to implement a ‘Low Carbon Advertising Policy’ which would prohibit adverts for these products in council-owned ad spaces.

The rationale 
As of November 2021, over 300 councils in the UK have made climate emergency declarations. Low Carbon Advertising Policies present an opportunity for local authorities to further their existing health and environmental policy goals relating to air pollution, active travel, cutting carbon emissions and town planning.
It should be noted that restricting advertising for harmful products (e.g tobacco or SUVs) is not the same as banning the products themselves. On specific policy outcomes relating to active travel, health, air pollution and public transport, adopting a low carbon advertising policy allows for joined-up thinking across different
council departments. It is counter-productive for public transport bodies, for example, to be running adverts for polluting private cars at their bus stops.

Local authorities have control of the following areas of advertising:
● Advertising billboards and digital screens located on council-owned land.
● Planning consent for advertising infrastructure (e.g new digital billboards) and its content.
● Passenger Transport Executives (such as Transport for London, Transport for Greater Manchester, Merseytravel, etc) have control of advertising policies on their vehicles and transport infrastructure, and are accountable to local democratic bodies such as Mayors’ offices.