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Rio de Janeiro’s futuristic Museum of Tomorrow building will celebrate its first decade in December by shining on the waters of the city’s bay. Ten years in which it became the most visited museum in Brazil (more than one million visitors per year) and a point of reference with its discourse on the challenges of the future, in particular with its warnings about the human contribution to climate change. The giant screens with smoking chimneys, droughts and melting glaciers are shocking. The message about the urgent need to change course is clear. The problem lies in the fine print, which goes unnoticed by most viewers: the museum is sponsored by Shell, one of the oil companies that has caused many of the problems reported by the museum.
Is this building an example of this? greenwashing OR ecoposture of monumental dimensions? The singular construction, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, was already born as a declaration of intent: its cooling system uses water from the Guanabara Bay, which purifies and returns it clean, and solar panels shine on the roof which at the time (they have not worked for three years) provided 15% of the energy consumed by the museum. Symbolic details for a content very different from that of traditional scientific museums. There are no physics experiments here, no whale skeletons. Games and interactive displays abound, where it is stated, without fear, that heat waves, bad harvests or climate refugees are a consequence of, among other factors, the “uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels”.
For environmental activist and geographer Bruno Araújo, that Shell sponsors a museum with this message is not a surprise, because it is a strategy to reposition itself and take ownership of the debate. Denying climate change and its responsibilities “is now impossible and appears very bad”, he underlines.
The alternative now, he says, is to jump on the solution bandwagon. “For them it is very positive that this image greenwashing is linked to the Tomorrowto sell that they are ceasing to be oil companies and becoming energy companies.” Araújo went viral a few months ago when, during an oil field auction in a Rio hotel, he hounded a Shell executive about whether he was worried about his grandchildren’s future and whether he could sleep soundly. Shell made a net profit of more than $16 billion last year and, despite persistent talk of the energy transition, still spends seven times more on oil and gas than in renewable energy and solutions, according to a report by Global Witness.
The director of the Museum of Tomorrow, Cristiano Vasconcelos, assures from his office, with a beautiful aerial view of the Amazon portrayed by Sebastião Salgado behind him, that he does not believe that the center will be “used”. He defends that sponsorships are essential for the survival of the museum (they contribute 70% of its budget, around 52 million reais per year, almost ten million dollars). Companies, he says, have no interference in the exhibition discourse. “There is no room for pressure, zero.”
Shell’s case is the most striking, but it is not the only controversial sponsor. Among the most important are also the Santander bank, accused on several occasions of financing companies that cause deforestation, or Vale, the Brazilian mining company responsible for the largest natural catastrophe in the history of Brazil: the breach of the Mariana dam (2015), with 19 deaths and the entire Doce river basin contaminated, and the Brumadinho tragedy (2018), another leak of toxic sludge that killed 272 people. Both Vale and Shell dedicate large sums of money to sponsoring events or facilities where they can showcase their sustainable message. The mining company, for example, is financing much of the work for the UN climate summit that the UN will hold in Belém do Pará in November, COP30, and Shell is proud to maintain the Botanical Garden in Rio de Janeiro.
For the director of the Museum of Tomorrow, one of the center’s missions is to create bridges of dialogue and break bubbles, which is why he believes it is essential that these and other companies are at the center of the debate, even if it is not the most comfortable: “If we do not bring to the table those who are essentially part of the problem to help communicate and for people to analyze, think and even put pressure on those same companies, we will achieve nothing,” he says.
These days, the museum atrium hosts a series of exhibitions, conferences and debates under the motto Heating for the COPto discuss what directions countries’ commitments will take to reduce emissions. “In the face of the climate crisis, the museum understands that more than data is needed: events must be felt to mobilize real change in collective ways of existence,” reads a welcome text. Outside the museum, golf cart-style electric vehicles offer free rides to tourists. They are sponsored by Shell, which ensures they are in line with the company’s strategy to be “a net zero liquid emissions company by 2050”. The oil company’s commitments are in question after it softened its emissions reduction target last year.
The company, which did not want to answer questions from this newspaper, said in a statement that its support for the Museum of Tomorrow is consistent with its vision of contributing to a future with more information, more environmental awareness and more sustainable alternatives and that transformation “does not happen with immediate disruptions, but with viable, safe and inclusive transitions”.
In June, Shell participated in one of the auctions periodically organized by the Brazilian government and won the right to exploit four oil wells off the coast of Sao Paulo “to strengthen the deepwater portfolio in Brazil”. It is an area of 2,700 square kilometers on the high seas, hundreds of kilometers away, but in the same ocean on which the Museum of Tomorrow appears to float.
