The public relations giant Edelman vaulted to the top of its profession with clever campaigns that burnished the images of leading corporations. Now, under fire for its work on behalf of fossil fuel companies, Edelman is scrambling to bolster its own reputation.
On Wednesday, more than 450 scientists called on public relations and advertising firms, including the prestigious Edelman, to stop working for oil and gas companies. The firms’ ad campaigns for these companies, the scientists said, “represent one of the biggest barriers to the government action science shows is necessary to mitigate the ongoing climate emergency.” A group of 100 activists and former Edelman employees, calling themselves “Clean Creatives,” issued the same demand.
The question for the PR and ad business is whether this emboldened coalition of academics and advocates can turn fossil fuel companies into social pariahs — a sort of New Tobacco.
“PR and ad firms are part of a web of influence, including law firms, lobbying organizations and think tanks,” said Christine Arena, who worked briefly for Edelman and later founded a small business called Generous Films. “They are all charged with maintaining the fossil fuel industry’s ability to operate.”
Edelman is following its own PR strategy. Earlier this month, it concluded a two-month study of its climate principles and scrutinized more than 330 of its 2,000 clients, including “a deep dive” on 20 whose emissions are particularly large. That group includes ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), according to Clean Creatives. So far, however, Edelman has not severed ties with any clients.
“I think we’re simply recognizing that this is the most important issue of the day and that clients, most clients, are going to want to do this,” Richard Edelman, the firm’s president and chief executive, said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Major financial institutions are trying to walk a similarly fine line. Last year, the asset and risk management firm BlackRock threw its considerable weight behind the election of three dissident directors at ExxonMobil, which on Tuesday said its own operations would reach net zero by 2050. In December, however, BlackRock was part of a multibillion-dollar deal to buy pipelines from Saudi Aramco. On Tuesday, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said his firm, which has $10 trillion under management, would not become the “climate police” or divest itself of fossil fuel firms.
“I do believe that extractive industry is going the way of tobacco, and for that same reason any [ad] agency who either claims ‘purpose’ or dabbles in sustainability will have to stop working with them,” said Henk Campher, who joined Edelman in 2009 to advise companies on developing corporate responsibility strategies and left in 2015 over what he said was Edelman’s lucrative work for the American Petroleum Institute. “Like CVS did — you can’t sell tobacco and medicine at the same time,” he said.
Activists have spent years lobbying universities, banks and religious institutions to divest from fossil fuels, a drive that is reminiscent of the anti-apartheid divestment efforts of the 1980s.
“The campaign targeting Edelman is one of many more to come, especially if ad agencies continue to ignore their crucial role in exacerbating the climate crisis,” Grecia Nuñez, a law student at American University and a member of Law Students for Climate Accountability, said in an email.
Nuñez’s group also is targeting several law firms, including Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, which has represented Chevron in a costly fight over oil waste left behind in Ecuador and over the Dakota Access pipeline in Montana. “Service providers such as ad agencies and law firms cannot claim neutrality when their business is to perpetuate climate change,” Nuñez said. Gibson Dunn declined to comment.
Pressure on Edelman is also coming from Clean Creatives — an activist group that collected more than 100 signatures in November, including those of comedian Amy Poehler, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and prominent climate diplomat Christiana Figueres. They demanded that Edelman drop ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies and petroleum trade groups as clients.
“‘Greenwashing’ is too mild a term. Edelman is in fact actively contributing to fossil-fuel emissions through its marketing activities,” the group said. It said that Richard Edelman, the chief executive, was “doing significant reputational damage to his agency’s brand as a leader in trust.”
Edelman is one of the most powerful public relations and advertising firms in the world, and its work with the fossil fuel industry has been under scrutiny for years.
Founded by Richard Edelman’s father, Daniel Edelman, in a corner of the Chicago Merchandise Mart, the firm later held space in the same building as Standard Oil Co. of Indiana.
“The white marble floors, the exclusive dining club at the top of the building, the stunning view of Lake Michigan were all part of the allure,” Richard Edelman wrote later. “It was a recognition that Edelman had made it to the big leagues; that we were worthy of representing any multinational.”
And it did.
From 2008 through at least 2011, the firm was paid an average of $68.9 million a year by the American Petroleum Institute for advertising that displayed ordinary people — “I’m Kelsie” or “I’m Roy” — beside a pitch for “developing our plentiful domestic energy resources.” Some analysts estimate that Edelman earned at least an additional $100 million from the trade group.
The firm sought other clients, too. At a May 2015 conference at National Harbor near D.C., an Edelman executive displayed slides about “The Rise of Activism; Oil & Gas PR and New Media Conference.”
The slides warned of “activism on the rise worldwide.” They said that half of the most-targeted companies were in the energy business, and they offered people an “anatomy of an activist” and the “activist playbook” — with an eye toward thwarting the companies’ opponents, according to one person who attended.
“I feel wholly comfortable with what we did,” Richard Edelman told The Post, recalling the firm’s work for the oil and gas industry. “Remember, it was 2014. Fracking and all this was quite new. We made the case of that being a positive for America.” He said the firm talked about “America recovering its industrial might through affordable energy” and “the technology story.” And many international industrial firms sited their plants near U.S. natural gas supplies.
On Wednesday, more than 450 scientists called on public relations and advertising firms, including the prestigious Edelman, to stop working for oil and gas companies. The firms’ ad campaigns for these companies, the scientists said, “represent one of the biggest barriers to the government action science shows is necessary to mitigate the ongoing climate emergency.” A group of 100 activists and former Edelman employees, calling themselves “Clean Creatives,” issued the same demand.
The question for the PR and ad business is whether this emboldened coalition of academics and advocates can turn fossil fuel companies into social pariahs — a sort of New Tobacco.
“PR and ad firms are part of a web of influence, including law firms, lobbying organizations and think tanks,” said Christine Arena, who worked briefly for Edelman and later founded a small business called Generous Films. “They are all charged with maintaining the fossil fuel industry’s ability to operate.”
Edelman is following its own PR strategy. Earlier this month, it concluded a two-month study of its climate principles and scrutinized more than 330 of its 2,000 clients, including “a deep dive” on 20 whose emissions are particularly large. That group includes ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), according to Clean Creatives. So far, however, Edelman has not severed ties with any clients.
“I think we’re simply recognizing that this is the most important issue of the day and that clients, most clients, are going to want to do this,” Richard Edelman, the firm’s president and chief executive, said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Major financial institutions are trying to walk a similarly fine line. Last year, the asset and risk management firm BlackRock threw its considerable weight behind the election of three dissident directors at ExxonMobil, which on Tuesday said its own operations would reach net zero by 2050. In December, however, BlackRock was part of a multibillion-dollar deal to buy pipelines from Saudi Aramco. On Tuesday, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said his firm, which has $10 trillion under management, would not become the “climate police” or divest itself of fossil fuel firms.
“I do believe that extractive industry is going the way of tobacco, and for that same reason any [ad] agency who either claims ‘purpose’ or dabbles in sustainability will have to stop working with them,” said Henk Campher, who joined Edelman in 2009 to advise companies on developing corporate responsibility strategies and left in 2015 over what he said was Edelman’s lucrative work for the American Petroleum Institute. “Like CVS did — you can’t sell tobacco and medicine at the same time,” he said.
Activists have spent years lobbying universities, banks and religious institutions to divest from fossil fuels, a drive that is reminiscent of the anti-apartheid divestment efforts of the 1980s.
“The campaign targeting Edelman is one of many more to come, especially if ad agencies continue to ignore their crucial role in exacerbating the climate crisis,” Grecia Nuñez, a law student at American University and a member of Law Students for Climate Accountability, said in an email.
Nuñez’s group also is targeting several law firms, including Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, which has represented Chevron in a costly fight over oil waste left behind in Ecuador and over the Dakota Access pipeline in Montana. “Service providers such as ad agencies and law firms cannot claim neutrality when their business is to perpetuate climate change,” Nuñez said. Gibson Dunn declined to comment.
Pressure on Edelman is also coming from Clean Creatives — an activist group that collected more than 100 signatures in November, including those of comedian Amy Poehler, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and prominent climate diplomat Christiana Figueres. They demanded that Edelman drop ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies and petroleum trade groups as clients.
“‘Greenwashing’ is too mild a term. Edelman is in fact actively contributing to fossil-fuel emissions through its marketing activities,” the group said. It said that Richard Edelman, the chief executive, was “doing significant reputational damage to his agency’s brand as a leader in trust.”
Edelman is one of the most powerful public relations and advertising firms in the world, and its work with the fossil fuel industry has been under scrutiny for years.
Founded by Richard Edelman’s father, Daniel Edelman, in a corner of the Chicago Merchandise Mart, the firm later held space in the same building as Standard Oil Co. of Indiana.
“The white marble floors, the exclusive dining club at the top of the building, the stunning view of Lake Michigan were all part of the allure,” Richard Edelman wrote later. “It was a recognition that Edelman had made it to the big leagues; that we were worthy of representing any multinational.”
And it did.
From 2008 through at least 2011, the firm was paid an average of $68.9 million a year by the American Petroleum Institute for advertising that displayed ordinary people — “I’m Kelsie” or “I’m Roy” — beside a pitch for “developing our plentiful domestic energy resources.” Some analysts estimate that Edelman earned at least an additional $100 million from the trade group.
The firm sought other clients, too. At a May 2015 conference at National Harbor near D.C., an Edelman executive displayed slides about “The Rise of Activism; Oil & Gas PR and New Media Conference.”
The slides warned of “activism on the rise worldwide.” They said that half of the most-targeted companies were in the energy business, and they offered people an “anatomy of an activist” and the “activist playbook” — with an eye toward thwarting the companies’ opponents, according to one person who attended.
“I feel wholly comfortable with what we did,” Richard Edelman told The Post, recalling the firm’s work for the oil and gas industry. “Remember, it was 2014. Fracking and all this was quite new. We made the case of that being a positive for America.” He said the firm talked about “America recovering its industrial might through affordable energy” and “the technology story.” And many international industrial firms sited their plants near U.S. natural gas supplies.
