New Whitepaper Calculates First Proven Path for Marketing Agencies to Ditch Fossil Fuels
Clean Creatives identifies opportunities in healthcare and renewables industries and circular economy sectors for Ad and PR agencies, providing a solutions pathway to replace fossil fuel contract revenue
London, United Kingdom—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 the financial pathways for a speedy, managed exit of fossil fuel client relationships.
The whitepaper ‘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 exit fossil fuel client relationships, and identifies the opportunities waiting in emerging high-growth industries such as healthcare, renewables and the circular economy – including the secondhand, rental, and refurbished goods sectors – to make the business case for transition.
Additionally, the whitepaper, launched in a presentation at midday today in Kings Cross, London, for London Climate Action Week 2025, highlights the once-in-a-generation first-mover revenue and reputation-building advantage to the first holding company to announce its offramp strategy.
Key findings when calculating the existing 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% of global marketing spend.
PR spend from oil majors averaged $2.7bn annually across 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Media spend from fossil fuel majors averaged $2.09bn annually across 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Creative advertising spend from fossil fuel majors averaged $630m annually across 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Key findings when analysing the potential to off-ramp:
By 2050, healthcare costs projected to arise from the climate crisis will be $1.1 trillion, annualised to $55 billion per year between now and then.
In 2024, global investment in clean energy was over $2 trillion, more than twice spent on fossil fuels.
In 2026, the circular economy is expected to reach a $712 billion market opportunity. By 2030, this will rise to $4.5 trillion globally.
The whitepaper's analysis provides a snapshot of a declining fossil fuel industry in the advertising and creative industries and explores how a warming planet has far-reaching negative impacts on other industries, such as agriculture, tourism, and insurance.
“For years, the marketing industry has avoided conversations about the actual steps needed to exit fossil fuel contracts. 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 offramping those clients.
The reality is that fossil fuel companies 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”. Duncan Meisel, Executive Director, Clean Creatives
The full report is available at cleancreatives.org/offramp.
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Media contact: Sam Narr, sam.narr@kibbokiftagency.com, +447840145031
Whitepaper Methodology
Clean Creatives calculated an average annual revenue by fossil fuel company using 2021, 2022 and 2023 annual revenue figures from publicly available financial documents.
Annual advertising spend estimates for Shell’s recent global pitch were reported widely in advertising trade publications during the pitch, and Clean Creatives used those numbers and ad spend estimates from trade publication articles about other fossil fuel companies to estimate an average percentage of annual revenue for global ad spend by company.
Clean Creatives assumed a similar percentage of ad spend relative to revenue across all fossil fuel companies, landing on 0.075% of annual revenue for media spend. Next, based on benchmarks commonly used to determine creative spend, we assumed creative costs to be 30% of the ad spend. Finally, for PR, Clean Creatives had off-the-record conversations, which provided some estimates, which we used to estimate that PR allocations were roughly 0.1% of annual company revenue.
About Clean Creatives
Clean Creatives is an award-winning campaign group calling for an advertising and PR industry-wide movement where creatives and companies pledge 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, including Finn Partners, with over 1,000 employees; GALE, with a global workforce of over 750; and Top 150 UK-ranked Hope&Glory. The campaign is 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 Havas’ B Corp status following its Shell contract win.
Recent agencies to have signed the pledge include AdAge's 2020 and 2022 International Agency of the Year, Mother New York, and Lucky Generals, who have been shortlisted for Campaign's Agency of the Year for the last five years.
In addition to the campaign's success and support from many industry leaders, Executive Director Duncan Meisel has been recognized on the 2024 Grist 50 List, Adweek's 2023 Sustainability Honoree and secured a spot on PRovoke's Innovator 25 North America list in 2022. The campaign regularly releases reports with bespoke data on fossil fuel contracts globally, including the F-List, which identifies agencies engaged with oil and gas companies.
Clean Creatives Website: cleancreatives.org
Clean Creatives Twitter: @CleanCreatives
Clean Creatives Instagram: @clean_creatives