The Ad Industry's Largest Agencies Are Still Hooked on Big Oil

Today, activist group Clean Creatives released its annual F-List report, publicizing 1,010 contracts between 590 ad and PR agencies and over 400 fossil fuel companies. All the contracts dated from 2023 and 2024, and were dug up by Clean Creatives' lead researcher, Nayantara Dutta, with support from strategic insights company Source Nine. "When it comes to climate and sustainability, too much of the ad industry has not changed since the Mad Men era. They are still using the same assumptions and approaches that they would have in 1970," Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives, told ADWEEK. "Clean energy investment is double that of fossil fuels. But because they have their heads stuck in this fossil fuel mindset, they are missing this vitally important energy transition." The report comes just three months after the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres took the stage at the American Museum of Natural History in New York to condemn advertising and public relations agencies working for fossil fuel companies, calling them "mad men fueling the madness." "Stop acting as enablers of planetary destruction," Guterres told the crowd. "Stop taking on new fossil fuel clients from today and set out plans to drop your existing ones." A more comprehensive view of adland Clean Creatives was founded in 2020 as a project of Fossil Free Media, and aims to pressure ad and PR agencies to drop fossil fuel clients due to their outsized impact in fueling global warming. Over 1,200 agencies have signed the campaign's pledge to refuse to work with fossil fuel clients. The first F-List, a name inspired by the A-List of agencies published annually by Ad Age, was released in 2021 and listed 90 firms. But while the list of agencies with fossil fuel ties has grown, that's not because those contracts are multiplying, the group said. Evidence for many of these connections is absent from the agencies' websites and instead buried in hard-to-find documents. The nonprofit has simply gotten better at finding them in public filings, LinkedIn's ad library, creative portfolios, PR agency directories, and lobbying databases. Each contract has at least three different sources to ensure accuracy. "This is absolutely the most comprehensive list we've ever published," Meisel said. "We added dozens of new sources of data, and I think we're very close to the point where there's simply no other contracts out there that we could possibly add." Clean Creatives is targeting three distinct audiences in its communication strategy around the launch of the F-List. First, it aims to reach executive-level leadership within the agencies listed in the report, hoping that they'll read it and understand the way that their work impacts the climate. Second is employees of those agencies, given how that work impacts their workplace and future, Meisel explained. Last, the group is targeting major advertisers with strong climate records, urging them to look into their agency relationships to see whether those agencies align with their values. Sustainability drops in priority One holding company-owned agency employee, whose agency is listed in the report and who spoke to ADWEEK on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the "initial shock value" of the list may have worn off in its fourth year. "It is still a needed reminder to hold up accountability to an industry that is doubling down on business as usual," they said, noting that work streams related to two major oil and gas clients are "alive and well" at their agency. "Sustainability doesn’t seem to be a business priority anymore," they added. Last year, Havas Media made headlines for winning Shell's media account, a triumph that resulted in four of its sister agencies being stripped of their hard-earned B Corp status after other certified companies alongside activist groups including Clean Creatives filed complaints. That news sent shockwaves through sustainability circles given the holding company's stated commitment to progress on climate. "Our research shows that holding companies are not making the progress required to divest from fossil fuels," Dutta, Clean Creatives research director, said in a statement. "Independent agencies have been twice as likely as holding companies to discontinue fossil fuel contracts, whether this is intentional or they have lost the business." ADWEEK reached out to Dentsu, Edelman, Havas, IPG, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, and WPP. Edelman declined to comment, and the rest didn't respond.

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The Ad Industry's Largest Agencies Are Still Hooked on Big Oil

Activist group Clean Creatives identified 1,010 agency contracts with fossil fuel companies

Kathryn Lundstrom

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Kathryn Lundstrom