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42 South African advertising and PR agency contracts with fossil fuels listed in new Clean Creatives SA F-List report

ISSUED BY CLEAN CREATIVES

Clean Creatives is ramping up efforts to hold South African advertisers accountable for their ties to the fossil fuel industry (think Engen, Shell, BP). The organisation has published their 2024 SA F-List titled “A Flood of Greenwashing: 42 Advertising and PR Agency Contracts with the Fossil Fuel Industry in South Africa.” This report, which focuses on recent fossil fuel contracts in 2023 and 2024, exposes the deep entanglement of local creative agencies in enabling the fossil fuel industry to greenwash its image while contributing to climate change. By aligning with these fossil fuel companies, the ad industry is undermining environmental activism and delaying crucial legislative changes needed to address the environmental damage caused by the fossil fuel sector.

VIEW THE SA F-LIST 2024

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The 2024 SA F-List is the second local edition of the global Clean Creatives F-List report. Released in September, this year’s global report was the most comprehensive yet, detailing 1,010 fossil fuel contracts held by 590 ad and PR agencies in the last two years worldwide.

As climate disasters and extreme weather become more frequent, the local report highlights how South Africa’s advertising and PR industry is not only failing to align with clean energy trends, but is actively working to protect the fossil fuel industry from accountability.

The Friday Street Club PR agency Managing Director and Founder, Emma King said: “From the devastating floods in Asheville USA and the hottest summer on record in the Northern Hemisphere, to our own floods in the Western Cape, in 2024, it’s apparent that the climate crisis is not a theory, but a reality happening in our own lifetime. As creatives and communications leaders, we have the chance to lead and change narratives – and we need to do this responsibly. We can either be part of the solution or part of the problem.”

In June, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called advertising and PR agencies “enablers to planetary destruction” due to their work for fossil fuel clients. 2024 has been the hottest year on record, but the fossil fuel industry has “sought to delay climate action — with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns. They have been aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies – Mad Men…fuelling the madness,” he said.

Among the 42 contracts revealed in the report, two case studies stand out for their harmful environmental impact:

1. MetropolitanRepublic’s Role in Suppressing Climate Activism in Uganda: South African agency MetropolitanRepublic ran a campaign to “squash” the negative PR from protests against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a controversial project led by TotalEnergies. The campaign, which won an award at Uganda’s Silverback Awards in partnership with The Loeries, reportedly employed ethically questionable tactics, including hiring influencers to counter environmental activism. The EACOP project has been condemned by the European Parliament for human rights abuses and is set to displace over 100,000 people.

2. APO Group Loses A Client Due to Work for the Pro-Oil African Energy Chamber: APO Group, a leading African PR consultancy, has lost Greenpeace as a client due to its continued association with the African Energy Chamber, a pro-oil lobby group. The Chamber’s events, such as African Energy Week, have drawn criticism for promoting fossil fuels and even featuring a climate denialist keynote speaker in 2023. Over 1,000 people from a coalition of civil society and fossil fuel affected communities protested against the upcoming edition of the conference at the Chamber’s Sandton headquarters on 8 October 2024.

The report is a sobering reminder that the South African creative industry is playing a crucial role in enabling polluters like Sasol, the country’s largest private greenhouse gas emitter, to continue business as usual despite mounting pressure to cut emissions. The 2024 F-List aims to increase transparency and urges the industry to take a stand against fossil fuel clients.

Clean Creatives SA Campaign Manager, Nozuko Noni Poni said: “This year’s report shows that efforts to greenwash fossil fuel companies are getting stronger and craftier, telling us there is more investment in the optics of positive change than in the meaningful climate action required to prevent the worst effects of climate change.”

The report also illustrates that the reputational and financial risks of working on fossil fuel accounts are growing. In August 2024, the South African Advertising Regulatory Board upheld South Africa’s first ever greenwashing complaint, brought against TotalEnergies by the SA Fossil Ad Ban campaign. TotalEnergies’ claim of enabling “sustainable development” in relation to its partnership with South African National Parks (SANParks) was found to be misleading and in violation of the Code of Advertising Practice, the board found.

The report also includes the winning artwork of the Creative Cleanup 2024 Young Creatives Challenge. The brief? Young South African creatives aged 18-25 were invited to submit artwork that would inspire The Loeries to stop giving awards to work done for fossil fuel companies. First-year Cape Peninsula University of Technology design student, Vusumzi Maseti’s winning work asked The Loeries: “Why reward bad behaviour?”

Clean Creatives_Loeries Challenge – Why Reward Bad behaviour poster

Vusumzi Maseti’s winning work

As South Africa faces more intense storms, floods, and droughts, Clean Creatives calls on advertising and PR agencies to follow the example of over 68 local agencies and more than 1,200 worldwide who have pledged not to work with fossil fuel companies. Local production companies, creative studios and the talent that power them are also increasingly turning down fossil fuel work, although Clean Creatives’ main focus is at the agency level. Prominent local agency signatories include DNA Brand Architects, The Whalley Collective, Alkemi Collective, The Friday Street Club and Paddington Station PR. The report is a call to action for the industry to stop enabling greenwashing and align with the global shift towards a cleaner, more sustainable future.

Take the Clean Creatives Pledge now.

For more information and to view the full list of agency contracts, visit https://cleancreatives.org/southafrica-f-list.

Media Contact: Nozuko Noni Poni
Email: noni@fossilfreesa.org.za
Cell / WhatsApp: +27 79 830 2280

About Clean Creatives South Africa:
Clean Creatives SA, inspired by and in partnership with Clean Creatives in the US, is bringing together SA advertising and PR agencies, their employees, and industry clients, to address the industry’s work with the fossil fuels that are the principal cause of climate breakdown. The movement is a 2023 Mail & Guardian Greening The Future Award recipient, and runner up for the 2023 Daily Maverick Our Burning Planet Hero of the Year. The local chapter of the movement is a campaign of Fossil Free South Africa.