Business
‘Ensuring Destruction’
Insurance companies’ investment in arms industry soars with war in Gaza and Trump election.
5 April 2025
Main image: Spoof ad calls out AXA insurance in central London
Activists have taken over advertising stands in seven cities internationally, with spoof adverts for the major insurance company, AXA.
The adverts mock the insurer’s hypocrisy for greenwashing their support for fossil fuel expansion, with the message: ‘We insure the ocean’s destruction while claiming to protect it.’
AXA is one of the top-10 largest insurers globally and is likely to insure gas expansion in Southeast Asia, a focal point for fossil fuel players such as energy giants Shell and Eni.
The spoof adverts build on a campaign to stop AXA from insuring new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in the Coral Triangle because of the catastrophic emissions they would create.
‘At a time when climate disasters are dramatically increasing in frequency, it is utterly incomprehensible that a major insurer such as AXA should continue to support fossil fuels, which are exacerbating the problem. AXA could send a decisive signal to the insurance industry by ceasing all support for these deadly energy sources. The very habitability of our planet, and the future of us all, is at stake.’
ANDREW TAYLOR
Boycott Bloody Insurance
Activists installed the adverts, translated into seven languages, on advertising stands in London, New York, Barcelona, Nice, Bayonne, Rennes and Grenoble.
Cecco de Cecco, a member of the Artivist Network, stressed the importance of taking the campaign beyond activist circles and reaching a wider public: ‘In Barcelona, the ads were placed in highly touristic and iconic locations, including the Sagrada Família and the Glòries Tower. Our aim is to reach international visitors coming to the Catalan capital and make them aware of AXA’s dirty dealings. We want people to see the connections between their everyday choices and the communities resisting fossil fuel projects, and to decide where they stand: in solidarity with those communities, or by continuing to fuel an ecocidal corporation.’
A campaigner at ANV-COP21, Juliette Caroulle, added: ‘By choosing to end all support for fossil fuels, AXA would send a decisive signal to the insurance industry to finally move away from fossil fuels, which are destroying our future. As citizens, we will continue to take action to push AXA to rise to its responsibilities.’
The advert was designed by AG Sano, an artist based in the Philippines, one of the countries in the Coral Triangle region where communities are fighting to prevent gas expansion and its impacts on up to 360 million local inhabitants’ livelihoods.
The Coral Triangle is the global epicentre of marine biodiversity. It contains 76% of the world’s coral species, critical tuna spawning grounds and vast mangrove carbon sinks, and supports over 360 million people.
Despite its ecological and social importance, fossil gas expansion is planned to rapidly escalate across the region, particularly through new LNG import terminals.
Asian civil society organisations vocally oppose the fossil fuel dependence this would create, while solar remains the cheapest source of new power across Asia.
Communities across the region have been resisting fossil fuel expansion, with many successes. Campaigners are supporting their fight by educating insurers about the risks and impacts of these projects and pushing companies to refuse or withdraw the insurance and reinsurance support needed for them to go ahead.
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