Haarlem, a beautiful Dutch city known for its tulip fields, art museums, and hofjes, will be the first in the world to prohibit meat advertisements in public places in order to discourage consumption, according to Dutch News.nl. Haarlem is working to reduce consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and the advertisements will be banned beginning in 2024, after the meat was added to a list of products deemed to contribute to the climate crisis. The ban was agreed upon last year and was made official last week.
According to the report, advertisements will not be permitted on city buses, shelters, or public screens. However, the move has prompted complaints from the meat industry that the municipality is ‘going too far in telling people what’s best for them’ as stated in the report, Amsterdam, Leiden, and The Hague have already prohibited advertisements for flying, gasoline-powered cars, and the fossil fuel industry.
The motion’s sponsor, Haarlem GroenLinks councillor Ziggy Klazes, told the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw, ‘Meat is equally damaging to the environment. We can’t tell people there’s a climate crisis and then encourage them to buy products that contribute to it’. Despite party leader Wopke Hoekstra’s recent support for protesting farmers, the Christian Democrats (CDA) supported the motion, according to the report.
‘We are more sustainable than the national party,’ said CDA councillor Ron Dreijer. The meat industry expressed its displeasure with the move. According to a spokesperson for the industry body Centrale Organisatie voor de Vleessector, ‘the authorities are going too far in telling people what’s best for them’. Notably, the meat industry created ‘Nederland Vleesland,’ a campaign to promote meat consumption as a ‘matter of taste’ as well as an economic benefit.
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