Friends of the Earth Côte-d’Or challenge the elected officials of Dijon Métropole in an open letter. They are asking not to renew the contract with Clear Channel for bus shelters and lollipop panels.
Open letter from Friends of the Earth Côte-d’Or to the president of Dijon Métropole dated February 18, 2021:
Ladies and gentlemen
You are not without ignoring the catastrophic environmental situation of our planet. Not a day goes by without a new report sounding the alarm on the disappearance of insects, on global warming, on air pollution, …
The common origin of these environmental degradations is our society of overproduction and overconsumption. Consuming more, always more, has become a real alienation for some, expressed by the holy grail of the 20th century: economic growth.
This overconsumption is essentially made possible by advertising. In 2018, you voted for an RLPi (Local Intercommunal Advertising Regulation) which only allowed the removal of several hundred large-format advertising panels throughout the city, but leaving advertising on the hundreds of bus shelters and lollipop panels. Following our various procedures, this RLPi is more restrictive than what you initially planned. So many streets have become peaceful, streets where passers-by are more tempted to admire the vegetation than to watch advertisements, who is complaining now?
We are calling on you today to ask you to take the second step: the non-renewal of the contract between the metropolis and the advertising company Clear Channel. This company takes care of street furniture (bus shelters and lollipop panels) and thus manages hundreds of advertising panels, in a way that is not always legal, moreover … This contract ends in 2022. We ask you now to make an explicit commitment. not to renew this contract (as the city of Grenoble did in 2014, which helped Grenoble to become European green capital in 2020) and to take the necessary measures now to anticipate the renewal of bus shelters. This commitment will make it possible to further free the metropolis from this incentive to overconsumption, including the purchase of absolutely non-local and highly polluting products, or promoting companies complicit in global warming and with questionable social norms, to encourage sexism and the industrial lobby. Advertising is the source of many evils that we have summarized in our file.
Advertising on street furniture is not inevitable. This non-renewal of the contract will be an excellent opportunity to promote eco-designed street furniture, on a human scale, centered, like the signs for Tram stops, on cultural, sports and citizen information; “It’s up to the citizen to decide what information he wants to receive”!
We ask you now to express yourself clearly on the subject, in particular by voting in this direction at the next Metropolitan Council. We remain at your disposal to discuss it.
For the Friends of the Earth Côte-d’Or
Association approved for the protection of the environment
President
Stéphane DUPAS
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