The British Museum has announced a 10-year, £50 million deal with energy giant BP to help fund the institution’s renovation project.
Despite opposition from climate campaigners, the new agreement with BP was announced as part of the museum’s plans to update a third of its galleries at its Bloomsbury site.
Louise Kingham, senior vice president for BP in Europe and the UK, said: “As a business that has made Britain its home for over a century, we are proud to be a long-term partner to this important British institution and play our part in its future transformation – whilst helping to ensure that this iconic cultural venue remains freely accessible to all.”
The British Museum’s relationship with BP dates back to 1996 and has long been criticised by environmental groups.
In August, over 80 cultural leaders and climate activists called on the museum to remove BP’s name from its lecture theatre. This came after reports that the institution’s 27-year sponsorship deal with BP was to end this year.
Lord Ed Vaizey, a former Conservative culture minister, welcomed the new deal. He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “We tend to treat BP as a pariah – BP has put a huge amount into the arts and has been treated very badly by some of the beneficiaries of that funding.”
However, environmental group Culture Unstained told the Independent: “This is an astonishingly out of touch and completely indefensible decision.
“We believe this decision is illegitimate and in breach of the museum’s own climate commitments and will be seeking legal advice in order to mount a formal challenge to it.”
“No cultural establishment that has a responsibility to educate and inform should be allowing fossil fuel companies to pay them to clean their image, not least the British Museum,” added Greenpeace UK’s policy director Doug Parr.
In a press release announcing the new BP deal, the British Museum said it has submitted its designs for an energy centre that will “see the phasing out of the use of fossil fuels within the museum’s estate, replacing them with low carbon technologies”.
British Museum building energy centre
This will result in an estimated annual net saving of 1,700 tonnes of CO2 compared to the museum’s existing usage.
As for the gallery renovations, applications for an international architectural competition will open in spring 2024.
Charlie Mayfield, chair of the museum’s masterplan committee, said some of the buildings are “over 200 years old and in urgent need of refurbishment”. He added: “Next year we will begin the process of completely overhauling our outdated energy infrastructure and replacing it with state-of-the-art facilities that will dramatically reduce our carbon footprint.”
The BP deal announcement comes after a turbulent year for the British Museum, which confirmed earlier this year that around 2,000 items in its collection had been stolen or damaged.
Images courtesy of the British Museum
