Local advertising industry plays pivotal role in aiding environmental destruction, says Clean Creatives South Africa

9 Oct 2023

The advertising industry aids fossil fuel activity and the companies primarily responsible for it. Clean Creatives South Africa has released a report naming the South African public relations and advertising companies working with fossil fuel companies.

A list of 41 public relations and advertising companies in South Africa that have fossil fuel companies on their books has been released by the SA chapter of the international movement Clean Creatives.

Clean Creatives South Africa’s report, The SA F-list 2023: Fuelling a Perfect Storm, was released on Wednesday and claims that PR and advertising companies are going against South African and global climate goals by aiding fossil fuel companies.

The PR and advertising firms listed include Ogilvy SA, M&C Saatchi Abel, Edelman SA and Joe Public. Companies they have represented include BP, Shell, TotalEnergies, Eskom, Sasol, Thungela and Exxaro.

Director of Clean Creatives South Africa Stephen Horn said there was no case to be made for the promotion of fossil fuels. He said that continued advertising was slowing down the country’s Just Energy Transition.

He told Daily Maverick: “There’s a growing understanding of the immense risks of climate change, and the relationship that big oil has … with strategic PR, communications and the advertising that surrounds it, which really, in the context of climate breakdown … I would equate to greenwashing.

“It’s creating that social licence for companies that aren’t responsible corporate citizens, because they are not aligning their core business goals with science-based targets.”

A case study in the Clean Creatives report shows that MediaCom South Africa, which carried out the PR for Shell’s V+ loyalty programme, helped the company increase its fuel sales.

“Since the inception of V+ in December 2019, Shell has well over a million registered cards which have resulted in more than 1 billion litres of fuel purchased,” the company said on its website.

The report by Clean Creatives South Africa is a first for the country. Its global team has published three over the past three years and the report was compiled through publicly available knowledge, Horn said.

He said the information was not from whistle-blowers nor was it an effort to bring companies into disrepute. The report is rather an effort to highlight the risks around greenwashing and miscommunicating or misrepresenting the long-lasting effects of fossil fuels on the environment.

Maciej de Waal-Dubla, head of brand at M&C Saatchi Abel, told Daily Maverick: “As an agency group, we have a clear and tangible ESG [environmental, social and governance] strategy, targets and reporting which looks to drive both people- and planet-positive behaviours through how we run our business, and the work we do with our clients.

“We don’t believe the answer to the challenges our planet and society face is a binary or simplistic ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The answer is in addressing, partnering and delivering a ‘just transition’.”

Daily Maverick also reached out to Joe Public, Ogilvy and Edelman SA, but did not receive a response.

‘Drowned out by money’

This year has seen some of the hottest days on record — particularly in July — almost certainly as a direct consequence of the burning of fossil fuels.

Scientists have repeatedly warned about the necessity of leaving fossil fuels in the ground to ensure global average temperatures do not surpass 1.5°C and avoid environmental degradation and the impacts of devastating climate events.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Hot, hot July 2023 set to be hottest month in recorded history — almost certainly caused by humans burning fossil fuels

Chapter 5 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report showed that existing business practices such as advertising and marketing strategies “may also attempt to deflect corporate responsibility to individuals or aim to appropriate climate care sentiments in their own brand building”.

The report added that businesses may sometimes delay political motivation towards climate action.

The Clean Creatives report showed that TotalEnergies planned to increase its fossil fuel gas output by 40% this decade, and direct 88% of its capital towards fossil fuel.

TotalEnergies was recently granted the go-ahead to drill off South Africa’s Western Cape coast between Cape Town and Cape Agulhas after an appeal against the exploration was denied. The company is also developing the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).

Read more in Daily Maverick: Drill, baby, drill: Environment Ministry gives Total green light for Western Cape coast offshore drilling

Zaki Mamdoo, a coordinator of the #StopEACOP campaign, said that TotalEnergies’ greenwashing efforts were a diversion from the harm and destruction that the company was causing.

“The advertising and PR companies commissioned by TotalEnergies are accessories to this catastrophe as they perpetuate the narrative of a ‘clean’ company, even as it continues to exploit and harm vulnerable communities across Africa.

“While climate activists, like those working on the StopEACOP Campaign, can find themselves being overshadowed and drowned out by the money and influence of advertising and PR campaigns working for TotalEnergies, the hard-hitting realities of climate collapse simply cannot be swept under the rug any longer,” Mamdoo said.

Among the goals of the F-list is to start a conversation about what responsibilities the advertising industry and other businesses have in responding to the climate crisis.

“We need to make society wake up from a collective lull,” said Horn.

“If we, as creatives, strategists, can come together and turn away the work, that is the only way these companies will make a change.” DM

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‘Drowned out by money’