Each day Reint Jan Renes walks from Amsterdam Central Station along the canals to his office and finds the city’s advertising increasingly grating. “We have this very, very beautiful old city, and you really have to look past all those signs that try to sell you something,” said Renes, a behavioral psychologist who studies urban sustainability. He sees a mismatch between Amsterdam’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2050 and the steady stream of ads for cars, burgers and other high‑carbon products that fill public space.
Burning fossil fuels is a major driver of climate change. Transport — including cars, aviation and shipping — makes up roughly a quarter of global emissions, while meat and dairy are the largest contributors among food-related greenhouse gases. Renes argues that advertising helps normalise carbon-intensive lifestyles and that restricting promotions is a logical step for a city serious about its climate targets.
Amsterdam has put that idea into practice. On May 1 the city became the first national capital to ban ads for meat and fossil-fuel-related products on city-controlled infrastructure. The prohibition covers home gas-heating contracts, flights, cruises and combustion-engine vehicles and applies to roughly 1,350 bus-shelter panels, 225 screens across metro stations and about 470 freestanding sidewalk panels.
Other cities are watching. Stockholm plans to follow this summer, and more than 50 cities worldwide have comparable restrictions, including Sydney, The Hague and Florence. France introduced a nationwide restriction in 2022, and Spain is considering similar moves. “What these pioneering cities do is make other cities reflect, ‘How we organised our city is not necessarily how it has to be,’” said Jan Willem Bolderdijk, a professor of sustainability and marketing at the University of Amsterdam.
Advocates point to the influence of marketing: oil and gas firms pour money into advertising, sponsorships and influencer campaigns because effective ads change behaviour. Researchers at Greenpeace Netherlands and the New Weather Institute estimated that car and airline ads in the EU in 2019 could be responsible for up to 122 million tonnes of greenhouse gases. Supporters also draw parallels with tobacco control; a review of global tobacco-ad ban effects found links to 20% lower odds of current smoking and a 37% reduced risk of people starting to smoke.
But critics say the measures are limited and largely symbolic. Advertising and media companies, including JCDecaux, warned of financial and legal fallout and lobbied against the rules; conservative politicians framed the moves as attacks on freedom. Travel industry groups sued over The Hague’s ban, claiming it breached free speech and EU trade law, though a Dutch court rejected those challenges, ruling commercial advertising is not protected by constitutional free-speech guarantees and that climate and health aims can justify trade restrictions.
The Amsterdam ban applies only to city-controlled surfaces; shopfronts and digital ads remain largely untouched. Opponents say that on its own it won’t shift consumption patterns. Supporters respond that ad restrictions are one tool among many: the IPCC says demand-side changes — consumer habits and lifestyles backed by policies, infrastructure and technology — could deliver 40–70% of the emissions reductions needed by 2050. “These fossil ad bans are just one of the many measures that are necessary,” Bolderdijk said.
Proponents hope the bans will chip away at social norms, make lower-carbon alternatives more visible and encourage complementary policies from other governments. Edited by Jennifer Collins.