Ban on Fossil Fuel Advertising
This is an historic moment for the advertising industry. Guterres called fossil-fuel companies the “godfathers of climate chaos” in his speech where he also shared new data showing the climate crisis is more urgent than ever before. The pressure is mounting on governments and regulatory bodies to pass legislation and regulation to ensure fossil fuel companies and the agencies that work for them are unable to continue to “distort the truth.”
Guterres remarked “it’s climate crunch time”, and shared that “we have what we need to save ourselves”, our natural world – forests, wetlands and oceans – absorb carbon from the atmosphere and we have the renewable technology available to slash emissions. At GOOD, we work with brilliant organisations such as NOC, WWT, RSPB, RHS, National Trust and many more who are working tirelessly to ensure we are maximising the potential of our natural world to fight the climate crisis.
However, this isn’t enough. As Guterres went on to say, the fossil fuel industry has “shown relentless zeal for obstructing progress… distorting the truth, deceiving the public and sowing doubt.”
This is a problem we have been fighting against since GOOD’s inception, and one that continues to cause unmitigated harm. In the last year, the oil and gas industry only invested 2.5% of its total capital spending on clean energy. Fossil fuel companies advertising would have you think otherwise, with greenwashing rife.
Guterres called this out, demanding advertising and comms professionals and their agencies “stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction.” Crucially, he calls on governments to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies – and to follow the same path as tobacco.
We believe that legislation is the only way to enforce real change, and hope this acts as the tipping point for government, agencies, and all involved in the enabling of fossil fuel advertising.
Since last summer, we have been campaigning with Clean Creatives to ask B Lab to take a hard line on agencies who work with fossil fuel clients. This week’s call to action from the Secretary General of the United Nations highlights how crucial this decision is – and how much influence it could have on the industry. Yet we still have heard nothing from B Lab. B Corp accredited agencies are continuing to work with fossil fuel clients and their greenwashing continues to accelerate the climate crisis.
We hope Guterres address leads to legislation change, and adds further pressure to B Lab to come to a decision – this is a global, urgent issue and one that can’t be ignored.
