The UK oil giant BP announced today that it will invest £7.5m in new sponsorship deals with four major British cultural institutions, continuing its long-standing relationships with the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and the Royal Shakespeare Company for another five years.
“BP has supported the British Museum for the past 20 years which has enabled the Museum to host magnificent exhibitions and events with a great public benefit,” the British Museum’s director Hartwig Fischer says in a statement. “From understanding the Emperor Hadrian and the legend of the Vikings, to the significance of Indigenous Australia and the Mexican Day of the Dead, these exhibitions and events have been enjoyed by millions of visitors to the Museum and have deepened understanding of the world’s many cultures and their interconnectedness.”
The news was met with hostility from environmental groups, who have escalated criticism of such partnerships with the company since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that saw 4.9 million barrels leak into the Gulf of Mexico.
“At a time when the world needs to urgently shift away from fossil fuels, the idea that these institutions will still be promoting an oil company into the 2020s is deeply irresponsible,” the group BP or Not BP says in a statement.
Some even criticised the move from a practical standpoint. “BP is ripping off our cultural institutions,” Anna Galkina, of the group Platform London, tells The Guardian. “Their sponsorship provides less than 0.5% of the British Museum’s budget. With this pocket change, BP buys legitimacy, access to invaluable advertising space, and masks its role in destroying indigenous lands, arming dictatorships and wrecking our climate.”