The British Museum has doubled down and signed a controversial ten-year £50m sponsorship deal with BP, just months after it had initially ended the 27-year relationship.
At the time, campaigners welcomed the museum’s move, calling it a “massive victory”, after years of environmental protests had called for the fossil fuel giant to be removed from the world of British arts and culture.
The museum has said the new ten-year deal – the biggest ever corporate donation to the UK arts – will provide vital funds for building renovations, the development of new galleries and an overhaul of its energy infrastructure.
“The British Museum is one of the largest and most visited cultural institutions in the world but some of its buildings are over 200 years old and in urgent need of refurbishment,” said Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the British Museum’s Masterplan committee, who described the plans as “essential”.
“Next year we will begin the process of completely overhauling our outdated energy infrastructure and replacing it with state of the art facilities that will dramatically reduce our carbon footprint… we are grateful to all our partners for their support.”
The announcement of BP funding for the museum has come as a surprise to many as it is in direct contrast to other significant cultural institutions who have been cutting ties with oil and gas companies, such as the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Shakespeare Company and the Tate.
“The arts and culture world has been steadily cutting ties with Big Oil, after realising the handy role they play in cleaning up their climate-wrecking image,” said Greenpeace UK’s policy director, Doug Parr.
“Yet BP has wormed its way back into the British Museum with what must surely be one of the biggest, most brazen greenwashing sponsorship deals the sector has ever seen. The climate is teetering on the edge of collapse and, like most of the exhibits on display, BP’s relationship with the British Museum needs consigning to the history books.
“No cultural establishment that has a responsibility to educate and inform should be allowing fossil fuel companies to pay them to clean their image, not least the British Museum who have been here before. Did they learn nothing?”
