Fresh doubts raised over future BP funding of British Museum

Further questions have been raised about the future of the British Museum’s controversial sponsorship deal with BP, after the museum said the two parties had no meetings or correspondence about renewing their funding arrangement for more than a year before their most recent contract expired.

The museum’s Hieroglyphs exhibition, which ended last week, was the final BP-sponsored show in the latest five-year contract between the energy company and the museum; according to its terms, that commercial partnership has now ended. No renewal or extension of the funding deal, first forged 27 years ago, has been announced by either party.

Responses by the museum under freedom of information legislation state that between October 2021 and December 2022, the most recent date covered by the disclosures, the museum and BP exchanged no correspondence and held no discussions about signing a new funding deal.

Before that, senior museum figures including its director, Hartwig Fischer, met a member of BP staff in September and October 2021, the museum has said, “but … we confirm that we do not hold any information suggesting that … the possible renewal of, or extension to, the company’s sponsorship agreement with the British Museum was referred to or discussed during any of the interactions listed”.

Despite the expiry of their contract, both the British Museum and BP remain tight-lipped about the nature of their current and future association. The museum referred the Guardian only to an ambiguous previous statement that “BP is a valued long-term supporter of the museum and our current partnership runs until this year”. BP did not respond to a request for comment.

While the most recent five-year deal with BP was always due to expire this month, campaigners have feared that the museum’s ambitious “Rosetta project” renovation plans, for which it needs to find £1bn in funding, might lead to a renewal of the sponsorship, even if in a less high-profile form. More details of the masterplan are expected to be revealed later this year.

The disclosures were obtained by the group Culture Unstained, which campaigns against fossil fuel funding of the arts and has been among the most vocal critics of the BP partnership during a decade of high-profile protests at the museum.

Chris Garrard, the group’s co-director, said: “According to the museum’s own contract with BP, the current sponsorship [has] ended … so what is it now trying to hide? Either it is stage-managing the exit of a polluting sponsor that it should be roundly rejecting or it has made the indefensible decision to allow BP to remain a partner of the museum, and to continue selling the oil and gas firm social legitimacy while it makes massive profits from conflict and climate crisis.

“The museum director has a duty to be open, honest and accountable – he must give clarity on where the museum stands.”

BP is one of the longest-standing financial backers of the British Museum, having supported its public programme since 1996. Their most recent contract was signed in 2016 and came into effect in 2018 as part of a five-year block sponsorship deal that also included three other major arts organisations – the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Portrait Gallery and Royal Opera House.

All three others have now ended their relationships with BP, while many other cultural organisations have also severed ties with the company and other fossil fuel sponsors. Garrard said now was “the ideal moment for the museum to join the rest of the culture sector in walking decisively away from fossil fuel funding”.

Environmental activists have campaigned relentlessly against the museum’s relationship with BP, while climate scientists, archaeologists and figures in the arts, as well as British Museum members and staff, have decried the fossil fuel sponsorship.