Is it getting a bit warm in here?

United Nations has called for an immediate halt on fossil fuel company advertising. Well that’s going to slow down global warming.

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely feeling the need for a cool breeze.

This is both a metaphor and an analogy.

In the advertising, marketing and public relations world, many are feeling conflicted by the entire climate debate.

The rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high in 2023 with 92% of last year’s surprising record-shattering heat caused by humans, according to a group of 57 highly qualified climate scientists. This has been largely attributed to buildup of carbon dioxide from rising fossil fuel use.

So should the advertising, PR and marketing industries be working with these companies?

We’ve covered both sides of this argument on The Fuel podcast.

On one side, there’s the position that we, in the marketing and advertising industry are merely consultants doing our clients bidding. If that client happens to be a fossil fuel company, then so be it. If we don’t do it, one of our competitors will. You can’t just halt the vast business machine of such a big client; it takes a long time to turn the ship around, so we can help them do that. And besides, they do have some green initiatives; the money’s good and we need the income. And EV’s use up precious resources too, don’t they? And who needs light bulbs and computers and phones?

On the other side of the debate, there’s the position that anyone working for fossil fuel companies is toxic and contributing to the increasing danger by encouraging a business that science tells us is harming the planet. It needs to stop now and any agency continuing to work with big fossil fuel is part of the problem and not the solution.

On that last point, where do you stop?

If we all did our due diligence, we’d find that most of the agency world has a client or two that is potentially unsound and vulnerable to criticism – because somewhere in its business model, it’s harming the planet or harming the moral framework that makes us responsible humans. It might be a car manufacturer, it might be a fashion retailer, it might be a sweet manufacturer or a flooring specialist.

Something that one or many of our clients do, will show up on the DE&I or ESG radar.

That’s because DEI and ESG have only become hot button issues recently and the commercial world has been around since forever.

Steve Harrison’s “Can’t sell, won’t sell” cry is as offensive to some folks in marketing as “Drill baby, drill” is to fossil fuel protestors.

But he’s right - in a way.

Marketing, PR and advertising agencies can’t just stop working for companies that are called out as bad actors because something in their business model offends someone.

It makes no sense at all that UN Secretary General António Guterres has said that fossil fuel companies should be banned from advertising immediately.

This is exactly the same knee-jerk reaction that got Britain into the chaos that Brexit wrought on the economy.

When the medicine causes more damage than the illness, we have to find another medicine.

No set of companies on the economic spectrum is more acutely aware of the rights and wrongs of DE&I and ESG than PR, marketing and advertising agencies. We’re sensitive to the zeitgeist; we can read the room.

We know that if we were to get a call from BP or Shell to pitch for some work – even if it was for a positive environmental initiative, we know that sooner or later there would be a complaint or a conflict.

The problem is that we’ve allowed the fossil fuel companies to become such a huge part of the global economy.

Our entire way of living is geared around the consumption of fossil fuels, and we’ve only got ourselves to blame.

The might of these great companies is such that they can deploy the same playbook that big tobacco used; create lots and lots of quasi-official science bodies to issue papers that muddy the waters, generate thousands of “yes, but” counter arguments and have enough politicians in their pockets to make us all willingly rush towards the ever-decreasing shoreline, while our retirement accounts swell from the profits invested by pension funds engorged by profits from these companies.

So, should we - as advertising, marketing and PR agencies, shut down accounts from clients that don’t check every box on the ESG and DE&I scale?

Of course not! How can you? It’s a rabbit hole we don’t want to jump down.

Neither do we want to audit our clients for their carbon footprint size, their supply chain hygiene, or their anti-slavery policies.

We are not the police.

UN Secretary General António Guterres is pointing the finger at the wrong people. The only people responsible for our addiction to fossil fuels are the fossil fuel companies and the politicians who take their money.

That’s it.

We have very limited powers, but we do still have democracy. If we make sure that we audit every politician for their agenda and policies that benefit the planet and its people, then we’re getting somewhere. They are the ones on the take, pointing fingers at everyone else.

 We don’t have to crash the economy and our companies, we just have to vote for the right people and let them - as our servants, restructure things so that we can all live in a more planet and people-friendly environment.

As the old saying goes, don’t blame the players, blame the game.