Yesterday, protesters from new climate group Cut The Ties To Fossil Fuels occupied the lobby of WPP, and dropped a huge banner on the Thameside embankment stating “WPP are climate criminals – Ban Fossil Fuel Advertising”. They remained there through lunchtime and during the course of more than two hours they spoke to staff, many of whom were very receptive.
In front of the entrance, a grim reaper figure sat atop a model oil rig, while the Oil Slickers street theatre group prowled around, and other campaigners staged a die-in, wrapped in shrouds with logos of some of the world’s biggest oil and plastic polluters – all clients of WPP.
WPP is an advertising agency group comprising around 90 advertising agencies around the world and boasting “enduring relationships with leading global brands and organisations, including 300 of the Fortune 500”.
Clean Creatives is a research and pressure group of strategists, creatives and business leaders pushing for fossil fuel companies to be banned from advertising in a similar way that tobacco companies were in the past. They have built a directory of hundreds of oil and gas companies and then researched which advertising agencies, groups and holding companies hold contracts with them, to build what they called the F-list, updated annually.
For two years running, WPP has topped the list, having the largest number of fossil fuel contracts, including some of the worst polluters such as Adani, BP, TotalEnergies, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, Shell, ExxonMobil, and ADNOC.
WPP’s 2023 Sustainability Report claims that their policy is not to provide clients with advertising or lobbying which is “designed to frustrate the objectives of the Paris Agreement”, but in reality they provide services for some of the biggest fossil fuel lobbyists such as the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, American Petroleum Institute, the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group and the American Chemistry Council.
WPP also run courses so that their employees can learn to “make effective green claims that are not misleading”, but 11 of their agencies represent BP and/or Shell – companies regularly accused of industrial scale greenwashing.
WPP won prizes at the 2023 Ad Net Zero awards, while working on more fossil fuel contracts than any other advertising group in the world – now that’s greenwash!
