One of the world’s oldest medical journals, The BMJ, has updated its advertising policy to ensure it does not promote or profit from entities contributing to increased greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.
Advertisements from fossil fuel companies in The BMJ have been banned since 2020 but the UK weekly peer-reviewed medical journal has now also prohibited banks that fund fossil fuel companies from taking paid advertising slots in its weekly print publication.
In an editorial article announcing the policy shift, The BMJ argued that governments have been slow to act on the transition away from fossil fuels and that “the objective is for these divestment decisions to be a tangible means of leadership and a way to exert influence on government and industry.”
The BMJ noted that it had received criticism from its readers for publishing adverts for Barclays Bank and that, going forward, it will only allow advertising “from banks that do not fund fossil fuel companies.”
It follows other British institutions including Christian Aid and Oxfam in severing commercial ties with Barclays, while others such as the National Trust have been criticized for continuing to use the bank’s services.
Barclays announced earlier in 2024 that it was to end direct financing of new oil and gas projects, but it remains a major funder of the fossil fuel industry through other types of direct and indirect investments.
It’s far from the only offender though – the latest Annual Banking on Climate Chaos report estimates that the world’s 60 biggest banks committed $6.9 trillion to the fossil fuel industry since the 2016 Paris Agreement and revealed JP Morgan Chase to be the single biggest financier of fossil fuels.
