The Hague, the third-largest city in the Netherlands, is mainly known as the home of the United Nations' International Court of Justice. Now, The Hague has put itself in the news for a different reason by becoming the first city in the world to pass a law banning advertisements for dirty energy and other highly polluting industries, Electrek reported.
The ban, which will apply mainly to outdoor advertising like billboards, outlaws ads for things like gas suppliers, gas-powered vehicles, and airline and cruise vacations.
"The Hague wants to be climate neutral by 2030. Then it is inappropriate to allow advertising for products from the fossil industry. Fortunately, the city council now recognizes this," said Leonie Gerritsen of the Party for the Animals, which first proposed the ban.
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While the move may seem on some level symbolic, Electrek rightly pointed out that similar advertising bans have been highly effective in lessening the consumption of certain products — most notably, cigarettes and other tobacco products. Comprehensive advertising restrictions on tobacco ads have been shown to significantly reduce smoking.
The dirty energy industry spends massive amounts of money every year — according to one study, the sports industry alone currently has $5.6 billion in sponsorship deals from dirty energy companies — trying to convince people not only to use its products but that the products themselves are not harmful to the planet and that the companies themselves care about our environment. This is untrue and an example of greenwashing.
Electrek's environmentally conscious commenters were thrilled by the news.
"Excellent," wrote one commenter. "They should move to ban sponsored content and even opinion pieces by those with known links to oil lobbying efforts in publications that wish to have access to their national networks too. Also content producers known to take funding from all the lobbies and 'think tanks' sponsored by the oil and gas industry."
"Wow, that's big. Great job The Hague!" wrote another. "I'm not convinced this will be very effective unless adopted more widely (for practical reasons, it's probably limited to billboards inside the city), but hopefully this will inspire other municipalities/counties/etc to adopt similar measures."
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