Marketing & Communications

Clean Creatives Offers ‘Off-ramp’ for Marketers to Ditch Fossil Fuels

Analysis highlights opportunities in healthcare, renewables, circular economy sector as pathways for ad and PR agencies to replace fossil fuel contract revenue.

Published 3 weeks ago | About a 4 minute read

Image: Lukáš Kadava

Campaign group Clean Creatives has released the first-ever analysis of the estimated global marketing spend of oil and gas majors; their total impact on the marketing industry; and financial pathways for a speedy, managed exit of fossil fuel client relationships.

Profitable Growth Without Fossil Fuels: Strategic Opportunities for a Fossil Fuel Free Future for the Marketing Industry represents the first numbers-backed case for the advertising, creative and PR industry to leave fossil fuel client relationships for greener pastures.

Off-ramping fossil fuel clients

The whitepaper's analysis provides a snapshot of the fossil fuel industry’s declining impact on the advertising and creative industries and explores how a warming planet has far-reaching negative impacts on other industries — including agriculture, tourism and insurance — and identifies opportunities waiting in high-growth industries including healthcare, renewables and the circular economy to make the business case for transition.

“For years, the marketing industry has avoided conversations about the actual steps needed to exit fossil fuel contracts,” says Clean Creatives Executive Director Duncan Meisel. “Discussions about revenue are easy to shy away from, and so we want to equip the companies who are entangled with oil and gas with the tools they need to approach off-ramping those clients.

“The reality is that fossil fuels are not a growth industry. Clean energy makes up the vast majority of new energy development worldwide, and it’s important to prepare now to embrace industries that will grow as fossil fuels decline.”

Additionally, the whitepaper highlights first-mover revenue- and reputation-building advantages for the first holding companies to announce offramp strategies.

Key findings around the scale of fossil fuel spend on marketing include:

The top 29 fossil fuel majors spent an estimated $7 billion on media, creative advertising and PR annually.
The top 29 fossil fuel majors' spending represents 0.7 percent of global marketing spend.
PR spend from oil majors averaged $2.7bn annually from 2021-2023.
Media spend from fossil fuel majors averaged $2.09bn annually from 2021-2023.
Creative ad spend from fossil fuel majors averaged $630m annually from 2021-2023.

Key findings around off-ramp opportunities include:

By 2050, healthcare costs projected to arise from the climate crisis will be $1.1 trillion, annualized to $55 billion per year between now and then.
In 2024, global investment in clean energy was over $2 trillion — more than twice the amount spent on fossil fuels.
In 2026, the circular economy — which includes the secondhand, rental and refurbished goods sectors — is expected to offer a $712 billion market opportunity, reaching $4.5 trillion globally by 2030.

“We believe there is a strategic framework for agencies to achieve a fossil-fuel-free future,” the report concludes. “A phased transition culminating in becoming fossil-fuel-free by 2030 — backed by specific steps such as foundational shifts, strategic pilots, portfolio pivots, public break-ups and brand repositioning — can generate a strong growth future for clean agencies.”

The Clean Creatives Pledge

Clean Creatives is an award-winning campaign group calling for an advertising and PR industry-wide movement to refuse future work with fossil fuel corporations. To date, over 1,400 agencies and 2,300 individuals worldwide have signed the Clean Creatives pledge to decline future contracts with the fossil fuel industry and decline work with agencies that retain fossil fuel industry clients — recent additions include AdAge's 2020 and 2022 International Agency of the Year, Mother New York; Lucky Generals, which has been shortlisted for Campaign's Agency of the Year for the last five years; and Allison, with over 1,000 employees across more than 50 markets.

As Allison VPs Jamie Kendricken and Mark Allegrini explained in a post: “We’re seeing more and more clients asking us about connections to fossil fuels. Why? Because they can’t achieve their clean commitments or authentically demonstrate progress to stakeholders if they’re working with partner agencies representing and helping to grow the fossil fuel industry. It becomes clearer with each passing year: The marketing community needs to step up its efforts to meet expectations and drive change.”

Clean Creatives is also responsible for ensuring accreditation standards for sustainability certifications exclude the fossil fuel industry, as seen in its work to successfully pressure B Lab to set a new precedent and revoke several Havas agencies' B Corp status following their Shell contract win.

Clean Creatives’ movement continues to gain steam alongside UN Secretary General António Guterres’ recent call for a global ban on fossil-fuel advertising and a growing number of bans on ads for fossil fuels and other high-carbon products in cities around the world.

The full report is available at cleancreatives.org/offramp.