A group of former oil and gas professionals have published an open letter calling on the Mayor of London to ban fossil fuel advertising across London’s public estate.
The letter follows a growing movement of cities around the world taking action to restrict fossil fuel advertising, with around 50 cities having introduced similar measures.
The open letter was sent to national media outlets, including The Guardian, but has not received wider coverage.
Life After Oil is sharing this letter on our website as a piece of information relevant to the wider conversation around moving beyond fossil fuels and challenging the normalisation of fossil fuel use.
You can read the full letter below.
OPEN LETTER TO THE MAYOR OF LONDON
Re: Banning Fossil Fuel Advertising Across London’s Public Estate
Dear Mayor Khan,
We write as energy industry professionals who have spent decades working inside the oil and gas sector – in technical, commercial, financial, and executive roles – and who have since left that industry to contribute actively to the energy transition.
We know this industry from the inside. That is precisely why we are writing.
On 1 May 2026, Amsterdam became the first capital city in the world to ban fossil fuel advertising from its public spaces, removing the promotion of petrol cars, flights, cruises, and oil and gas products from billboards, tram shelters, and metro stations. The Hague enacted a legally binding equivalent in 2025, subsequently upheld by a Dutch court.
Over 50 cities globally have now announced their ambition to restrict fossil fuel advertising. London is not among them.
This is difficult to reconcile with your stated ambitions. Since you set London’s zero carbon goal in 2018, the Transport for London network has hosted over 240 advertising campaigns by oil and gas companies including Shell, BP and ExxonMobil.
Several of these were deliberate “tube station domination” campaigns at Westminster and St James’s Park – the stations most frequented by politicians and decision-makers. We would call this what it is: a strategic effort by the fossil fuel industry to purchase social licence, in public space that you control.
The products being advertised matter. Flights, cruises, and SUVs are among the most carbon-intensive consumer choices available. SUV advertising alone has been found to make someone 250% more likely to own one than no vehicle at all. Oil and gas companies globally invested around 2.5% of their capital expenditure in clean energy in 2022.
The gap between their advertising message and their actual business model is not a communications problem – and London’s public estate should not be the vehicle for bridging it.
Your powers here are substantial and underused. Under Section 155 of the GLA Act, you can direct TfL to change its advertising policy without primary legislation – exactly as you did to ban junk food advertising in 2019.
TfL’s estate spans the underground, buses, overground, DLR, trams, river services, and TfL-controlled street furniture. Beyond that, the London Plan and Mayoral guidance give you a meaningful platform to encourage London’s 32 boroughs to adopt consistent low carbon advertising policies across their own estates – following the lead of Edinburgh, Sheffield, and Cambridgeshire, which have already done so.
GLA-controlled civic spaces and cultural venues offer a further opportunity to end fossil fuel sponsorship in spaces associated with London’s public identity.
The legal and policy landscape has shifted decisively.
Dutch courts have confirmed local governments can act. France legislated nationally in 2022. The ASA has strengthened its environmental guidance. Edinburgh and Sheffield have workable definitions in place. The arguments for waiting have run out.
We call on you to direct TfL to ban fossil fuel advertising – covering oil and gas companies, petrol and diesel vehicles, airlines, airports, and cruise lines – across its entire estate; to issue guidance encouraging London’s boroughs to follow suit; and to end fossil fuel sponsorship across GLA civic and cultural spaces.
Since 2019, TfL has banned advertising for foods containing too much fat, sugar, or salt on public health grounds. That policy was right. The case for applying the same logic to products driving the climate crisis is, if anything, stronger.
Amsterdam has shown what leadership looks like. The legal pathway is established.
London has both the powers and the platform to act. We urge you to use them.
Yours sincerely,
Jo Alexander, Kevin Anderson, John Carley, Samantha Cooper, Caroline Dennett, David Fleet, Ian Haslam, Alex Hillman, Arjan Keizer, Andy Lane, Guy Mansfield, Andrew Murphy, Charlie Rickett, Philip Ringrose, Colin Simpson, Russell Smith, Neil Wallis, Irina Woodhead
[Signatories are members of the Life After Oil community and include former employees of BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Equinor, Texaco (now Chevron), BG Group and others.]
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