A Complex Network Of Business And Lies: How The Global PR Busines Protects Earth's Most Destructive Industry
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Advertising companies often do their best to keep their fossil fuel work under wraps, even to their own staff, employees told DeSmog. For instance, managers may hold separate meetings for fossil fuel accounts teams to tout their accomplishments internally, rather than sharing at all-staff gatherings. At the same time, these agencies sometimes loudly promote their sustainability achievements. In 2023, French communications giant Havas made a public commitment to “an ambitious decarbonization trajectory.” But later that year, the company won a contract to run British oil major Shell’s ad placement strategy. In 2024, a Havas agency pitched (unsuccessfully) for Shell’s global PR account.
One Havas employee told DeSmog reporters in 2023 that a culture of silence had existed around both pitches, with “zero internal communications.” Another said that, by contrast, there were “huge celebrations” when Havas London attained B-Corp status, an ethical business certification, in 2018.
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In 2022, WPP CEO Mark Read told financial analysts, “We are there to support them [oil and gas clients] on that transition.” An October 2024 report by InfluenceMap, however, found that WPP had more clients obstructing net zero climate policies than supporting them — and revealed a similar picture at Interpublic Group, Omnicom, Dentsu and Publicis Groupe. Havas CEO Yannick Bolloré mounted a similar defence of his company’s work for the fossil fuel industry in response to questions from industry press about his decision to work with Shell in 2023. “We believe the most effective change comes from within,” Bolloré was quoted as saying. Bolloré later told an audience at an industry conference: “Our industry should be able to work with any industry as long as, and this is important, they are themselves on a meaningful transition journey.” That same year, Shell stated that it was “stepping back” from its renewable energy portfolio, despite having previously promised to increasingly offer renewable power.
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Other agencies have also sought to present themselves as authorities on avoiding greenwashing. After nearly a decade of making ads promoting U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil’s speculative algae biofuels research programme as a viable climate solution, Omnicom ad agency BBDO launched a sustainability consultancy designed to help clients navigate greenwashing concerns in 2023. BBDO’s newest ad campaign for ExxonMobil, however, features a flood of social media ads suggesting that the company will use carbon capture and storage to fight the climate crisis. Currently, ExxonMobil uses the technology to pump more oil. There is also little realistic prospect of the technology being deployed at a scale that could make a difference to the climate: The emissions from burning the oil ExxonMobil alone sold in 2023 would outweigh the amount of carbon capture industry plans to deploy by 2035, according to an analysis of investment plans by BloombergNEF. In 2022, Interpublic Group went a step further than the other holding companies when it announced it would not work on campaigns intending to shape policy to prolong fossil fuel use. However, in 2022 and 2023 Interpublic Group subsidiary Weber Shandwick lobbied the European Union over its climate policies on behalf of Shell, Eurogas, and a fuel supplier trade association. An InfluenceMap investigation had previously found that these fossil fuel companies were lobbying to include natural gas — a fossil fuel — in Europe’s energy future. Weber Shandwick did not respond to a request for comment.
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https://www.desmog.com/2025/02/10/ad-firms-make-oil-companies-look-green-heres-six-ways-they-greenwash-themselves/