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In your leader on arts sponsorship (“When the arts world goes green”, FT View, August 19) I was surprised to see you calling divestment “a flawed and self-defeating strategy”.
My surprise turned to shock when I then read you were supportive of the stance taken by Sir Ian Blatchford, the director of the Science Museum in London, who last year warned (Interview, November 28) that the arts world risked being “eaten alive by its own piety”.
The editorial suggested more business leaders “need to emulate Blatchford and call out unreasonable demands from outside and from their own staff”.
It’s worth pointing out that Gautam Adani of Adani Enterprises, one of the biggest heavyweights globally when it comes to fossil fuel mining, has for years been handing money over to the Science Museum in an arrangement Blatchford has been happy to accommodate.
Funding arts, educational and cultural establishments when you have something to hide is nothing new. But pretending it is philanthropy is greenwashing and does need to be called out.
The Sackler Foundation faced (for them) unintended consequences when activists exposed their “philanthropic donations” as cover-ups and attempts to wilfully mislead the public about another type of business, deadlier than fossil fuels.
The irony for Baillie Gifford, the other arts sponsor in the news, is that having been accused of a limited amount of greenwashing it could easily have afforded to clean up its act.
But the Science Museum faces a much bigger scandal.
Barbara Mullarney
London W3, UK
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