Dealing in fossil fuels? These advertisers won’t work for you. By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson Jan.25th 2024 Over 50 Canadian advertisers and PR agencies have joined a 900-strong global group that has pledged not to work for the fossil fuel industry. Founded in the U.S., the Clean Creatives group aims to shine a light on the key and often overlooked role advertisers play in generating and spreading disinformation about fossil fuels and the climate crisis. Some companies have also joined the group, pledging not to hire ad companies collaborating with fossil fuel promotion. Canada has no regulations restricting greenwashing, so fossil fuel interests largely have free rein to push misleading environmental claims — if ad agencies are willing to work for them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that misinformation is blocking the reduction of emissions and elimination of fossil fuel use. Industry-funded campaigns have long been a major source of this misinformation, pushing false or misleading details about the dangers of fossil fuels and undermining climate policies. Fortunately, fossil fuel companies are "not very good" at actually building effective greenwashing campaigns without help, said Sarah Riley, founder and chief strategic officer for R&G Strategic, a sustainability marketing and communications company and member of the Clean Creatives group. Instead, they typically hire ad and communications agencies to craft their strategies and create the images and illustrations, websites and copy that underpin successful greenwashing campaigns. That is where Clean Creatives comes in: By refusing to work for fossil fuel companies, the group is trying to shrink the pool of ad agencies available to fossil fuel producers, while highlighting the ad industry's role in harmful misinformation.
"Oil companies don't write the comms, that's not what they do," said Duncan Meisel, the Texas-based Clean Creatives executive director. "The people who write it are PR professionals and they're actually very good at what they do."   That role has come under scrutiny in recent years. Ad agencies are increasingly being targeted alongside their fossil fuel-producing clients in lawsuits and campaigns against climate disinformation, said Meisel.Those reputational concerns, combined with increasingly frequent climate disasters hitting the major metropolitan areas where many ad agencies are based, have pushed some to reconsider whether to take on oil and gas producers as clients. Over 50 Canadian advertisers and PR agencies have joined a 900-strong global group that has pledged not to work for the fossil fuel industry.,,,,,read on    https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/01/25/news/dealing-fossil-fuels-these-advertisers-wont-work-you      https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/01/25/news/dealing-