Science Museum trustees raised concerns over links with controversial sponsor

Trustees at the Science Museum recently expressed unease over the museum’s ongoing sponsorship with a company belonging to Indian conglomerate Adani Group, it has emerged.

Documents disclosed by the museum under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request reveal trustees voiced concerns with the museum’s chairman, Timothy Laurence, over the sponsorship from Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary of one of the largest coal producers in the world and the named sponsor of the museum’s energy gallery.

Trustees contacted Laurence after news broke that the chair of Adani Green Energy and the wider Adani organisation, Gautam Adani, was indicted by the United States Department of Justice last November.

The US department has accused Adani of committing securities and wire fraud between 2020 and 2024 and believes bribes totalling $256 million have been paid out in the name of the organisation to secure renewable energy contracts.

An arrest warrant is now in place for Adani and his nephew, Sagar Adani, who is an executive director of Adani Green Energy.

Previously, the Adani Group has said it is seeking “all possible legal recourse” against the allegations, describing them as “baseless”.

Due diligence

According to the released documents, Science Museum trustees discussed the indictments in December and “agreed to continue to monitor developments in line with the Science Museum Group’s (SMG) due diligence processes”.

The bribery and fraud allegations would appear to breach the museum’s group ethics policy, which states SMG “will not accept donations, sponsorship or grants where the donor has acted, or believed to have acted, illegally in the acquisition of funds, or where there are concerns of fraud, money laundering or other financial crime”.

The museum also has a specific anti-bribery clause in its sponsorship agreement with Adani Green Energy.

Documents also reveal a separate concern was raised by a Science Museum trustee about Adani Group’s partnership with Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, which produces drones used in the genocide in Palestine.

“With huge controversy surrounding Adani – from the destructive impacts of its vast coal mining and weapons business to allegations of corruption – it’s abundantly clear that the Science Museum should not be opening doors for Adani to meet senior politicians nor cleaning up its reputation,” Culture Unstained co-director Chris Garrard commented.

Sponsorship details 

The Science Museum has been given more than £4m by Adani Green Energy since the start of the sponsorship, documents recently publicised by the Cabinet Office show.

The documents were released ahead of Culture Unstained taking the museum to a First-tier Tribunal, held last week, to challenge its response to a FOI request.

These documents also reveal that, on the same day a signing ceremony for the sponsorship took place in October 2021, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson attended a meeting with Adani and the Science Museum’s director and chair at the museum.

During the meeting, which coincided with the period that Adani is alleged to have been personally involved in paying bribes, the group discussed plans to list an Adani entity on the London Stock Exchange and build a European Adani headquarters in the UK.

The following year, Johnson met Adani again, this time at the conglomerate’s headquarters in India. The newly released documents show the pair discussed partnership on arms and defence projects, with Adani sharing his aim to produce a ‘BAE [Systems] of India’.

Ethical responsibility

A representative from activist group Parents for Palestine says that Adani Green Energy cannot be considered a separate entity to its parent company when it comes to ethical responsibility.

“Adani Group’s extensive arms dealings and investments in military infrastructure directly implicate all its subsidiaries,” the representative said. “By presenting Adani in a positive and ‘green’ light to the UK Prime Minister, who then went on to discuss with Adani its ambition in weapons to become the ‘BAE of India’, the Science Museum cannot claim neutrality – it is complicit in the actions of its sponsor’s parent company.”

The Science Museum has been under pressure to withdraw its sponsorship agreement with Adani Green Energy since its initial announcement.

Two trustees resigned in protest of the arrangement in late 2021, around the same time climate scientists left the museum’s advisory group in opposition to the museum’s willingness to accept investment from oil and gas companies.

The museum has been subject to a string of protests since the start of its sponsorship from teachers, scientists, parents and activists.