Gothenburg, the next Swedish city to ban fossil fuel advertising?

Last fall, the municipality of Stockholm announced it would introduce a fossil ad ban, prohibiting “all advertising, sponsorship and other collaborations that drive fossil fuel use”. The city of Gothenburg has recently  taken a similar decision; namely “to draw up guidelines to ban advertising for fossil coal, oil and gas extraction on Gothenburg city billboards“. It is a victory for everyone who has worked to highlight the consequences of fossil advertising in recent years.

The question around banning fossil advertising has been pushed for a number of years by several parties in Gothenburg. In 2021, the Green Party, the Left Party and the Feminist Initiative made a joint motion to stop fossil advertising on the city’s billboards. The motion was put forward in the wake of Amsterdam’s decision to stop fossil advertising, but was voted down by the city council. But the parties did not give up on the issue, and the Green Party in Gothenburg ensured that the topic of fossil advertising was in its election manifesto.

Following the local election in September 2022, there was a change of power in Gothenburg with a new majority consisting of Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Green Party. This opened up new possibilities and enabled a decision to be made in Gothenburg’s budget for 2023, tabled on the 24 November 2022, to draw up guidelines for ending fossil advertising.

As a result, Sweden’s two largest cities – Stockholm and Gothenburg – have ongoing work and ambitions to stop fossil advertising. We have previously reviewed Stockholm’s ambitions and goals in the blog post “Stockholm aims to introduce fossil advertising.” Now it is about making sure that these guidelines are drawn correctly and do not contain any loopholes.

The question now is which city will be next to follow in the footsteps of Gothenburg and Stockholm to end fossil advertising?