Schools are vital in helping prepare kids for the future by giving them the best education possible to tackle the increasing number of challenges facing our world.
Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to contribute, contact us to ask for a detailed brief.
It is one of the only opportunities we get to just focus on learning, away from any other priorities or vested interests.
However, this safe space is being increasingly contaminated by opportunistic fossil fuel companies that are polluting our air and harming kid’s futures.
Coal, oil and gas companies are actively impeding this important time for our kids, using school programs and sponsorships as marketing tools to increase their community acceptability, all while their products damage our health and environment.
Increasingly they are trying to exert influence in schools nationally through these targeted sponsorship programs – whether it is giving out awards or sponsoring “science lessons” that teach kids how to mine for resources. In fact, there are now more than 60 school programs across Australia sponsored by fossil fuel companies.
Each year, for example, the petrol company Ampol hands out the “best all rounder” award to high school students around the country. In their advertising, they claim the award “provides the opportunity for your school to acknowledge a final year student who has made an exceptional contribution both in and out of the classroom.” This may sound harmless and who can blame schools for wanting to take money in a cash-strapped environment? Yet, underpinning awards like this is a far more sinister motive.
We all know the science now – coal, oil and gas companies are actively polluting our environment – warming our planet and causing health effects right here and now. Australian children, for example, are now losing more years of good health to disease from air pollution than tobacco smoke. Like tobacco companies in the past, fossil fuel companies are aware that their products are having damaging effects, but they continue to push them anyway.
This is why they are turning their attention to schools. Fossil fuel companies are not pouring money into schools out of the goodness of their hearts. Instead, it is a PR exercise for them to try and salvage their image for the next generation. In doing so they are polluting the learning environment, providing one sided information about climate change and ignoring the benefits of moving to renewable energy sources.
Reducing fossil fuel influence in schools will not only reduce climate misinformation, especially to the youngest in our society, but will help open up new pathways to renewable energy.
We conducted research with Comms Declare and among a national sample of parents, the survey found revealed the extent of their concern over the harm these sponsorships are doing to their children. They are sounding the alarm when it comes to fossil fuel sponsorship, with over half calling for coal, oil and gas companies to be added to the prohibited list of products for ads and sponsorship in schools.[1]
56 per cent of parents said they would support restrictions on coal, oil and gas companies’ commercial activities in schools, much like there already exists on banking, junk food, tobacco and weapons manufacturers in some states.
It’s undeniable that preventions on these companies reaching commercial arrangements of this kind with schools helps keep students free from harm. The fact that we allow fossil fuel companies, doing a similar kind of damage, into supposedly safe spaces for our kids is hard to believe.
There is an opportunity to change this though. In my hometown of Canberra, the ACT Education Directorate is set to review their School Sponsorship Policy this year, providing the rare opportunity for the ACT government to draw a line in the sand and back a clean energy education for over 80,000 pupils. The ACT Education Directorate already bans sponsorships from companies we have deemed too dangerous for kids – tobacco, alcohol, weapons manufacturers and gambling. The number of parents backing the ban rises to over 75% support in the ACT.
We’ve had multiple parents from the territory reach out to us concerned about fossil fuel advertising in schools. All parents are asking is that fossil fuels be added to the prohibited list – they don’t want their kids’ education being polluted.
Our findings also show that 76 per cent of Australian parents feel that educational materials sponsored or produced by fossil fuel companies would mislead children about the benefits of renewable energy and the dangers of a changing climate. We can’t allow these companies to use our kids for their agenda.
The ACT government has a chance to be a true climate leader once again, with the first ever ban on coal and gas school sponsorships in Australia. Reducing fossil fuel influence will not only reduce climate misinformation but will help communities to find new pathways to prosperity. We can, once again, demonstrate a viable path forward for the rest of the country.
Our schools shouldn’t be providing a platform for companies that are jeopardising our kids’ futures. Instead, schools should be places of learning that focuses on protecting and safeguarding our children’s future.
It’s unacceptable for coal, gas and petrol companies to target children like this to try and buy social licence. The Paris Agreement requires signatories to enhance climate change education[2]. It is time for the Government to step in and say no more fossil fuels in our schools.
Simon Copland is executive director of Conservation Council ACT
[1] 56% of parents support demands for an Australian first restriction on coal, oil and gas companies advertising or sponsoring activities and programs for their children. – Comms Declare x Conservation Council ACT Survey
[2] Article 12 states “Parties shall cooperate in taking measures, as appropriate, to enhance climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information, recognizing the importance of these steps with respect to enhancing actions under this
Agreement”. https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/paris_nov_2015/application/pdf/paris_agreement_english_.pdf