What is Baillie Gifford and why are festivals being pressured to drop their sponsorship this summer? The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has just announced that it will stick with its sponsorship deal with Baillie Gifford, after an internal review over the company’s links to Israel and fossil fuels. Fringe CEO Shona McCarthy has said that among the “fevered environment” festivals exist in, the board voted “overwhelmingly” in support of maintaining the partnership. Baillie Gifford is a Scottish investment firm that entered the public eye in August last year when over 50 authors threatened to boycott the Edinburgh Book Festival over its investments in corporations that profit from fossil fuels.
At the time, it was reported that the firm had around £4.5 billion (€5.3 billion) invested in companies involved in oil and gas money.
Baillie Gifford has sponsored many of the major literary festivals around the UK in recent years, including the Hay, Borders, and Cheltenham Book Festivals, alongside Edinburgh Book Festival and Fringe Festival. After the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip following the October 7 attacks by Hamas, the boycott, championed by pressure group Fossil Free Books, has also demand that Baillie Gifford also divest “from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide.” Fossil Free Books’s pressure has succeeded to make the Hay Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Wigtown Book Festival, and Borders Book Festival end the.
