Every morning behavioral psychologist Reint Jan Renes walks from Amsterdam Central Station to his office and notices the same thing: commercial billboards and screens that clash with the city’s historic streetscape. Renes, who studies urban sustainability, sees ads for cars, burgers and other high-carbon products as undermining Amsterdam’s aim to be carbon neutral by 2050.
On May 1, Amsterdam became the first national capital to prohibit advertising for meat and fossil-fuel products. The ban covers a range of promotions, from combustion-engine vehicles and airline and cruise offers to home gas-heating contracts. It applies to advertisements on infrastructure the city controls — roughly 1,350 bus-shelter panels, about 225 screens in metro stations and some 470 freestanding street panels — but does not reach private-property signage outside shops or most digital ad space.
The move is part of a broader trend: Stockholm plans a similar restriction this summer, and more than 50 cities worldwide, including Sydney, The Hague and Florence, have enacted comparable rules. At the national level, France limited fossil-fuel advertising in 2022 and Spain is considering similar measures.
Proponents say the bans seek to reduce the normalization and promotion of high-emission lifestyles. Research from Greenpeace Netherlands and the New Weather Institute estimated that car and airline advertising across the EU in 2019 may have been linked to up to 122 million tons of greenhouse-gas emissions — more than Belgium’s annual output. By removing promotional messaging that encourages demand for carbon-intensive goods and services, city leaders hope to shift attitudes and consumption patterns over time.
Supporters compare the strategy to tobacco-control policies. Studies of comprehensive tobacco-advertising bans found associations with lower smoking prevalence and reduced uptake among new smokers. Advocates argue that advertising shapes desires and social norms, and that restricting promotional exposure can gradually change what people view as necessary or desirable.
Experts caution that an outdoor-ad ban alone will not instantly change behavior. Jan Willem Bolderdijk, a marketing and sustainability professor at the University of Amsterdam, notes that decades of consumption norms did not form overnight. Still, he and others see advertising restrictions as one useful element within a broader package — paired with infrastructure improvements, pricing signals and technological shifts — that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says could reduce global emissions substantially by midcentury.
The policy has its opponents. Outdoor-ad companies and some businesses warned of economic and legal fallout; JCDecaux, the world’s largest street-ad operator, lobbied against the decision. Conservative politicians criticized the move as an infringement on freedoms. Travel industry groups sued The Hague over its ban, claiming it violated free-speech and trade rules. A Dutch court rejected those challenges, ruling that commercial advertising is not protected speech under the constitution and that public-health and climate objectives can justify trade restrictions.
Critics also call the measures largely symbolic, noting the limited reach of city-controlled displays and the continued presence of digital and privately owned ad channels. Supporters acknowledge those limits but argue the bans help accelerate a cultural and regulatory shift, making sustainable choices easier and more routine.
For policymakers and researchers like Renes and Bolderdijk, restricting promotional materials that glamorize high-emission behaviors is a modest but concrete step toward aligning everyday urban environments with climate and public-health goals.