Amsterdam bans public adverts for meat and fossil fuels

This view is echoed by Anke Bakker, who is Amsterdam group leader for a Dutch political party that focuses on animal rights – Party for the Animals.She instigated the new restrictions, and rejects accusations of them being nanny state."Everybody can just make their own decisions, but actually we are trying to get the big companies not to tell us all the time what we need to eat and buy," says Bakker."In a way, we're giving people more freedom because they can make their own choice, right?"Removing that constant visual nudge, she says, both reduces impulse buying, and signals that cheap meat and fossil heavy travel are no longer aspirational lifestyle choices.Meat was a relatively small slice of Amsterdam's outdoor advertising market – accounting for an estimated 0.1% of ad spend, compared with roughly 4% for fossil related products.The advertising was instead dominated by the likes of clothing brands, movie posters, and mobile phones.But politically the ban sends a message. Grouping meat with flights, cruises and petrol and diesel cars reframes it from a purely private dietary choice to a climate issue.Local politicians Anneke Veenhoff (left) and Anke Bakker say the ban was neededUnsurprisingly, the Dutch Meat Association, which represents the industry, is unhappy at the move, which it calls "an undesirable way to influence consumer behaviour". It adds that meat "delivers essential nutrients and should remain visible and accessible to consumers".Meanwhile, the Dutch Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators says that the ban on advertising holidays that include air travel is a disproportionate curb on companies' commercial freedom.For activists like lawyer Hannah Prins and her environmental organisation Advocates for the Future, which worked closely with campaign group Fossil-Free Advertising, the ban on meat advertising is a deliberate attempt to create a "tobacco moment" for high carbon food."Because if I look now back at like old pictures, you have Johan Cruyff," says Prins. "The famous Dutch footballer."He would be in s for tobacco. That used to be normal. He died of lung cancer."That you were allowed to smoke on the train, on restaurants. For me, that's like, whoa, why did people do that? You know, that feels so weird."So it really is like what we see in our public space is what we find normal in our society. And I don't think it's normal to see murdered animals on billboards. So I think it's very good that that's going to change."Lawyer Hannah Prins wants people to view meat in the same way as they do smokingThe Dutch capital is not starting from scratch.Haarlem, 18km (11 miles) to its west, was in 2022 the first city in the world to announce a broad ban on most meat advertising in public spaces. It came into force in 2024, together with a prohibition on fossil fuel adverts.Utrecht and Nijmegen have since followed with their own measures that explicitly restrict meat (and in Nijmegen's case also dairy) advertising on municipal billboards, on top of existing bans on adverts for fossil fuels, petrol cars and flying.Globally, dozens of cities have, or are moving to, ban fossil-fuel advertising. Such as Edinburgh, Sheffield, Stockholm and Florence. France even has a nationwide ban.Campaigners hope that the Dutch approach - linking meat and fossil fuels - will act as a legal and political blueprint others can copy.Stand at a tram stop in Amsterdam and you might no longer see a juicy burger or a 19 euro ($18.70; £14.90) flight to Berlin on the shelter.Yet the same eye-catching offers can still pop up in your social media algorithm. And, let's face it, many of us would be looking down at our screens until the tram trundles along.