To combat the climate crisis, the Dutch city of Haarlem wants to become the first in the world to ban meat advertisements. Starting next year, they will be gradually banned from advertising spaces rented by the municipality, such as buses, bus shelters or giant screens.
Posted at 12:00 a.m.
“The city council has decided to do everything in its local power to stop climate change,” says Ziggy Klazes, the city councilor who drafted the motion.
In interview with The Press, the politician (who has been a vegetarian since the age of 11) specifies that it is only meat from factory farms that is targeted, because of its significant carbon footprint. Fast food chains will no longer be able to promote their burgers.
“We are not against meat as such. The message is that we prefer meat raised by small-scale farmers [slow farmers] “, she says.
Carried by the environmentalist party GroenLinks and adopted in 2021 by the municipal council of this city of 160,000 inhabitants, the motion went completely unnoticed until the city’s partner advertising agencies were notified of the changes. At the beginning of September, the new recovery by The Guardian traveled around the world.
The industry’s outcry was quick. “The resistance is enormous,” admits Mme Klazes.
However, she stays the course. “I want to start a dialogue,” she says. ” And it works. The proof is that we talk about it as far away as Quebec! »
PHOTO ANDREW KELLY, REUTERS
Meat from factory farms has a significant carbon footprint.
The power of advertising
Haarlem is not the first city in the Netherlands to try this approach. For some years now, Amsterdam has banned advertisements related to fossil fuels in its metro system and city center.
In 2021, around 20 environmental groups such as Greenpeace also launched a campaign to pressure the European Commission to prevent advertising from companies whose products contribute to global warming, similar to the restrictions imposed on the industry. tobacco.
Are these approaches effective? Stéphane Mailhiot, president of the communications firm Havas Montréal, replies that the power of advertising on the behavior of citizens should not be underestimated.
“If we’re talking about banning advertising for motor vehicles, cigarettes, alcohol or meat, it’s because advertising works,” he says.
The proof ?
The tobacco industry struggled to retain its right to display and its right to advertise. Every time we try to limit a company’s ability to communicate, it fights not to lose it.
Stéphane Mailhiot, president of the communications firm Havas Montréal
However, the impact of such restrictions is likely to be felt in the long term. “When an entire industry can no longer speak, then inevitably, it influences in one way or another the consumption of new generations”, he thinks.
On the other hand, he points out that with its very niche ban, the city of Haarlem probably does not leave much “money on the table”. “I have nothing against the idea of banning meat ads in a given market, but if instead I continue to have ads for SUVs or tour operators, we may have a problem […] It marks the spirits, but it does not change much. »
Legislate
According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the agricultural sector accounted for 10% of total emissions in the country in 2019. Canada’s 200,000 farms alone therefore generated 73 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2) in 2019. Of this number, 24 Mt came from “enteric fermentation”, i.e. the gases released by animals during their digestive process.
Normand Mousseau, a professor in the physics department at the University of Montreal and a specialist in energy issues, does not immediately oppose the approach of the city of Haarlem, but he finds it a bit moralizing. Above all, he doubts its real effectiveness.
“I think we need these initiatives, left and right, to advance the reflection, but for scaling up, we have no choice but to go towards legal frameworks. If we don’t want to have chickens that are in small cages, at some point, we can tell people: “We have to stop buying chickens raised in small cages”, the real solution is to say: ‘It’s forbidden'”, he illustrates.
If society wants to reduce the carbon footprint of animal farming, regulating the emissions allowed for each calorie produced would be a more decisive approach, he thinks. “Why not tell beef producers, ‘If [tu dépasses ce seuil], either it is forbidden or you have an additional tax.” There is a way to manage that and, in the end, the citizen does not have to pull out a 300-page book to decide what to buy. »