Clean Creatives invites all Edelman clients to help minimize risks to their brand and the climate by encouraging CEO Richard Edelman to end work for fossil fuel clients.

Contact duncan@fossilfree.media if you’d like to receive resources to help your brand make a positive impact in this moment.

CEO Richard Edelman has turned Edelman PR into the leading agency for major polluters and fossil fuel companies. After pressure from clients and activists, he has begun a review of their fossil fuel clients, due to conclude in January 2022.

Here are some of the known relationships between Edelman and fossil fuel polluters:

The American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers:

During the time that Edelman has worked with them, AFPM’s main agenda item was influencing the Trump administration to roll back fuel efficiency regulations aimed at cutting global warming pollution from cars and trucks. One ex-EPA official called the rules AFPM lobbied for “a reprehensible debacle.” The regulations would result in 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, and cost consumers $244 million in fuel costs.

AFPM also lobbied across multiple states to pass laws that would criminalize protests against oil pipelines, and regularly pressures federal and state legislatures to allow more pollution in the frontline communities where their refineries are located.

Major oil conglomerates like Shell and BP quit AFPM in this period, calling their stance on climate change too extreme, but Edelman stuck with them.

Exxon “Exxchange”

ExxonMobil has aggressively targeted the Biden Administration through its “Exxchange” platform, which uses digital ads on Facebook to encourage Americans to oppose these measures. This platform is managed by Edelman, who says they use it for the purpose of pursuing Exxon’s public policy agenda, which includes influencing climate legislation, and allowing access for drilling on US federal lands. 

• Opposing action in Congress

Throughout 2021, Exxon has regularly been the top spender on climate issues across Facebook, and their total ad spending on the Exxchange extends into the millions of dollars. These ads ask their audience to contact Congress to oppose action on climate, making misleading or false claims like ‘1 million jobs at risk’ or to tell Congress ‘no tax hikes.’ 

• Opposing corporate reforms at Exxon itself:

During their 2021 shareholder meeting, Exxon faced a competitive election for 3 board seats contested by the “Engine No. 1” slate. During shareholder voting, the Exxchange platform run by Edelman was used to assist with campaigns opposing the election of these candidates. Ads were run across social platforms defending Exxon’s current business plan, designed to sway shareholders against supporting the challenger candidates, placing Edelman on both sides of a major conflict over corporate policy. Eventually, all three Engine No. 1 candidates moved onto the board, over the objections of Exxon’s executives. 

More: https://gizmodo.com/exxon-s-secret-assist-from-the-world-s-top-pr-firm-1847721598, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/climate/oil-facebook-ads-biden.html

Alberta Energy War Room and CAPP: 

This is a taxpayer funded initiative set up in Dec 2019 by Alberta premier Jason Kenney which is an industry coalition masquerading as a public service. The Canadian Energy Center works to convince citizens and industry that Canadian oil is alive and well with campaigns opposing limits on pollution levels in oil products, and regulations on tar sands pipelines. 

Edelman is the PR partner (and also the recipient of an illegal single source contract) to do work which included the July 2020 campaign When We Work, Canada Works. 

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is the Canadian equivalent of the American Petroleum Institute.  Edelman is listed as the PR contact at the Global Energy Show in 2018 and 2019. CAPP launched Canada Energy Citizens in 2014. Although I have no direct proof that Edelman brought Energy Citizens to Canada it’s almost impossible to believe that they did not, directly or indirectly.

BriarPatch did a two part investigation of the Canadian oil sector and its PR agencies.  “The Oil Industry’s PR Offensive” reported that at the 50th annual Global Petroleum Show in Calgary (a CAPP event), Edelman is listed as the “conference press contact” for the show. Shae Pollock, an account manager at Edelman - Calgary since 2019, is listed as contact from DMG Events Global Energy Show website.

The American Petroleum Institute:

Edelman Public Relations had a long and very lucrative relationship with the American Petroleum Institute, the biggest and most powerful oil industry trade group.

The financial value of Edelman’s partnership with API eclipsed all other known PR contracts with energy trade associations, and was triple the combined spending by all renewable energy trade associations, including the ethanol association, between 2008 and 2012. The non-profit API’s tax filings reveal that API paid Edelman up to $75 million a year between 2008 and 2012, with a total of $327 million over those five years.

In 2013, API switched to Blue Advertising, a subsidiary of Edelman, which garnered another $112M between 2013 and 2016 when its contract was terminated. (Note: IRS required contractors to report income starting in 2008 so we have no information on this relationship prior to that year. We do know Edelmans’ API contracts started well before 2008). To be clear, much of this money passed through Edelman to be spent directly on advertising and did not end up as profits at Edelman. Nevertheless the relationship was lucrative for the PR giant, and its dismissal by API was a significant loss to the company.

In 2014, the Climate Investigations Center (CIC) surveyed the major PR companies about their climate commitments, about carbon tracking inside the PR company, and other basic climate-related questions. The president of Edelman’s U.S. unit accidentally copied CIC in an email to staff instructing them not to respond. “There are only wrong answers for this guy,” he said of the survey.

The ensuing media scandal caused a series of tremors inside the company, eventually forcing Edelman to publicly pledge not to work with climate deniers or the coal industry (without ruling out oil and gas or other polluters) and causing multiple senior staff to quit in protest.

Edelman spun off Blue Advertising in an effort to preserve its API business and API retained Blue for a few more years. While Edelman pledged it would no longer work for coal companies or with climate deniers, it’s not clear they ever had much coal industry business nor how they defined “climate denial.”

Transcanada, Keystone XL:

In 2015, Edelman proposed an ‘aggressive’ campaign to promote the development of the Energy East pipeline for pipeline company TransCanada. Energy East was planned carry Canadian tar sands, widely considered the dirtiest fuel source on the planet in terms of total impact on water and climate. Edelman proposed character attacks on water defenders, astroturf organizations along the pipeline route, and more as part of their campaign. When the plan leaked, TransCanada cut their ties with Edelman, and eventually the project was cancelled.

Simultaneously, Edelman worked on behalf of API to promote the controversial TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, which was also planned to transport tar sands oil through the United States. Edelman organized astroturf support for the pipeline, flooding public comment periods with paid input, and organizing against environmentalists and local opposition. The pipeline, which would have crossed vital water sources and violated Indigenous rights, was eventually rejected by President Obama, before being revived by Trump, and then rejected again by President Biden.

Shell:

Shell has plans to increase their oil and gas production by over 20% in the next decade, and hasn’t set any target for ending exploration, extraction, or refinement of oil and gas.

Edelman has been a key partner in misleading the public about Shell’s plans, producing campaigns that overstate Shell’s commitment to renewable energy by highlighting projects that make up a minuscule part of Shell’s planned capital expenditures. Edelman’s stated purpose with these campaigns is to target young people who support action on climate change.

• Millennial campaigns focused on biofuels:

For example, Edelman was tasked with “giving millennials a reason to connect emotionally” with Shell, and created the “South Pole Energy Challenge”, which prominently featured Shell’s biofuels in an extensive organic and paid social media campaign. These fuels, which are not available for purchase by individual consumers, play a key role in assisting polar explorers Robert Swan and his son on a trip to the South Pole, which was documented on Shell’s social media platforms.

• The ‘net zero ambition’ disclaimer:

Edelman Amsterdam submitted a campaign for Shell focused on ‘nature based solutions’ to the SABRE EMEA awards in 2020. Under the umbrella of Shell’s “Make the Future” tagline, a video from the campaign claims that “Shell is harnessing nature” with tree-planting, biofuel investments, and more. Left out of the discussion is the scale and scope of these investments: less than 5% of Shell’s annual cash capital expenditures in 2020, in comparison to over $17 billion spent on new fossil fuel projects. 

Ads related to Shell’s “Net Zero Ambition” have been the subject of litigation in Dutch court that resulted in rulings telling the company to end the campaign, and invest in large emissions cuts in order to remain in sync with the Paris Climate Agreement goals, and all come with the heavy disclaimer that “Shell’s operating plans and budget do not reflect Shell’s net-zero emissions ambition.”

What’s more, Shell’s goal for “nature based solutions” are wildly out of step with reality. Reuters researchers compiled evidence that Shell’s current plans for nature offsets require more offsets than currently exist on the planet as of 2019. Edelman’s work is at the very essential center of Shell’s greenwashing.