Extinction Rebellion targets Howden in protest ahead of Six Nations match

Extinction Rebellion (XR) held a protest against Howden ahead of England’s Six Nations match against Wales at the weekend.

Howden is among the contingent of sponsors for the British and Irish Lions team and is the official front of jersey sponsor for The Qatar Airways Lions Men’s Tour to Australia in 2025.

XR targeted the broker ahead of the Six Nations match on Saturday (15 March 2025), with brokers holding banners that read “Bin Howden” and “Give Howden The Red Card”.

The protest was part of the Insure Our Survival Campaign, which aims to stop insurance firms from insuring new fossil fuel projects.

XR also staged a mock rugby match wearing snorkels and flippers to highlight the risks of increased flooding to rugby pitches.

One protester said “I would like to see rugby dissociate from fossil fuels and support a sustainable future. Ideally the government would halt new oil and gas licences and rugby would be sponsored by renewable energy companies.”

Other protest

This comes after XR targeted a range of insurance firms towards the end of 2024.

The group also targeted Howden’s office in One Creechurch Place in January 2025, with it being the venue for the Airmic Risk Forum.

XR, the Education Climate Coalition and Insure Tomorrow all staged demonstrations as delegates arrived.

A spokesperson for the Education Coalition told Insurance Times: ”We are here to speak with insurers and risk managers to ask them to cease their involved with fossil fuel companies.

“The theme of the [Airmic] event is – Is another world possible? We say there is another one and one which is free of fossil fuel power.”