Museums and Ethical Sponsorships
Ethical issues around corporate sponsorship and ambiguous philanthropy polarise museum professionals. But what if we could reframe gifts from high-impact sectors as part of a duty of repair?
AI SUMMARY:
The Museums Association is revising its Code of Ethics, due this October, urging museums to move away from sponsorship tied to fossil fuels and human rights abuses. While Tate and the National Portrait Gallery have cut BP ties, others, like the British Museum, defend such funding — even accepting a record £50m from BP in 2023. With public funding declining, institutions face a dilemma: reject “dirty money” and risk survival, or accept it and face accusations of greenwashing. A proposed reframing sees sponsorship as civic reparation rather than philanthropy, shifting prestige to accountability in cultural funding.
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UK museums follow Codes of Practice and Conduct, primarily the Museums Association's (MA) Code of Ethics alongside the International Council of Museums' (ICOM) Code of Ethics for broader international guidance. The first Codes of Practice and Conduct were firstly introduced in 1977 and updated in 1987, 1991, 2002, 2007 and 2015. The MA is now conducting a review of the Code of Ethics to be voted on and ratified in October this year.
One of the most notable steps up is that it spells out expectations around corporate support and pushes to “transition away” from sponsorships tied to environmental harm (including fossil fuels) and human rights abuses. The new Code asks institutions to conduct due diligence on sponsors and “strive to secure funding from ethical sources that align with the values of the organisation and serve the best interests of communities.”
The shift mirrors a public climate in which funding sources are scrutinised as closely as programming, and high-profile arts bodies have already cut ties with oil and gas sponsors. For instance, both Tate (in 2017) and the National Portrait Gallery (in 2022), after sustained pressure from activists, ended their partnerships with BP, one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and one of the world's largest companies.
Some other national museums, such as the Science Museum and the British Museum, continue instead to accept fossil-fuel money and defend it as essential to access and capital projects. One of the most notable cases is the announcement, in 2023, that the British Museum received a £50 million donation from BP, the largest single donation ever made to the UK’s cultural sector. The sponsorship is linked to a redevelopment of the museum, estimated to cost £1bn, which is needed “to be able to move forward and make sure this museum is still here for generations to come” — a spokesperson for the museum said.
In June of this year, the same British Museum and other English institutions, including the V&A and The National Gallery, backed an open letter calling for an end to “relentless negativity” around the corporate sponsorship of arts projects. The letter, published in the Financial Times, states that “partnering with businesses ensures our work goes further”.
While there is no doubt about the ethical conflict implied in accepting funds from a company that causes environmental harm, it would be perhaps even more hypocritical not to ask ourselves what the alternative is. In a world where only “clean money” can be used, would museums be able to sustain themselves in the long term, maintain their infrastructure to a high standard, pay cultural workers fairly, support new commissions and acquisitions, develop programmes for their audience, and offer accessible ticket prices? After all, these things are expected and pretended — yet they are expensive.
The hard truth is that the shift away from fossil fuel funding is occurring while public funding for the arts has been declining. This leaves institutions more vulnerable and more reliant on other sources of private income, which are often scarce. Public subsidies have eroded in real terms for years (e.g., 70% of Tate’s income is raised from non-government sources), and museums warn that shutting off entire categories of corporate income could widen the gap. The pool of ethical corporate sponsors and large philanthropic donors is limited and highly competitive. Outside of major capital cities, securing significant donations and sponsorships is even more difficult. Revenue from ticketing, merchandise, and events is often unreliable and can fluctuate significantly due to factors like the cost-of-living crisis.
But what if it was possible to shift not the source of funding, but how we define it? Why do we need to see sponsorship as a sort of honour badge and not a civic duty in which these companies do some sort of restitution and repairing?
We are outraged by the idea that a company like BP might finance the redevelopment of the British Museum, because, in our systems and language, we treat sponsorship as virtue signalling rather than as a means of repair. From the Medici onward, cultural funding has conferred prestige, naming rights, and therefore honour. However, the narrative could shift to emphasise reciprocity and repair, reframing it as a civic duty. Label gifts from high-impact sectors as part of a duty of repair, not generosity, would also mean to replace plaques that glorify donors with transparency notices, such as “Funded as part of X company’s environmental repair commitment”.
Such a reframing would not magically resolve the ethical dilemmas of cultural funding, but it could rebalance the conversation. Instead of leaving institutions in the impossible bind of either refusing much-needed resources or appearing complicit in greenwashing, we might acknowledge that museums — like societies at large — are entangled in economies of harm. If sponsorship were redefined as civic reparation rather than philanthropy, the emphasis could shift from prestige to accountability, making visible the cost of cultural survival while demanding more responsible behaviour from funders. This is not a perfect solution, but it may open the way towards more honest, transparent, and sustainable cultural funding models, ones that support museums without silencing the urgent ethical questions that underpin their future.
Further readings:
Harris, Gareth. UK national museums back call for end to ‘relentless negativity’ around corporate arts sponsorship. The Art Newspaper. 2025. Read (here) | Ambrose, Jillian. Museums defend BP sponsorship after firm abandons climate targets. The Guardian. 2025. Read (here) | Museums Association. Draft Code of Ethics 2025. Read (here) | Neuendorf, Henri. Oil Giant BP to End Controversial 26-Year Tate Sponsorship in 2017. ArtNews. 2016. Read (here) | Tate. Governance. Read (here).