IPG fossil fuel work 'breaks own climate change policy'

As IPG inches ever closer to its $13bn deal with Omnicom, the group’s own staff have accused it of breaking its own climate policy by promoting the world’s biggest oil company, Saudi Aramco, as well as QatarEnergy, in a move that one insider describes as “taking problematic clients and minimising it, burying it, obfuscating it, and mischaracterising the work”.

DeSmog, an organisation which works to expose climate change denial, claims to have obtained that internal IPG documents that provide a rare inside view of the role advertising and PR agencies play in delaying climate action by promoting polluters as greener than they actually are, even as ad chiefs play up their climate credentials to placate feelings of complicity among staff.

The revelations come amid growing scrutiny of agencies’ role in climate greenwashing, as employees and campaigners push for the industry to cut ties with polluters. IPG is being acquired by Omnicom in a $13bn deal, which will create the world’s largest advertising group.

One former employee at ad agency McCann – a subsidiary of IPG’s McCann Worldgroup – said that their agency’s approach to working with fossil fuel clients was to “maximise profits at all costs, period”, adding “that means taking problematic clients and minimising it, burying it, obfuscating it, and mischaracterising the work.”

A dozen current and former staff said IPG’s work advising Aramco to target policymakers appears to breach a 2022 IPG commitment not to work on projects “aimed at influencing public policy that seeks to extend the life of fossil fuels”.

Employees said the QatarEnergy deal also violated IPG’s climate policy, which limits new clients to those aligned with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target. QatarEnergy instead plans to increase production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 84% by 2031, despite scientists warning that such expansion is incompatible with the Paris goal.

DeSmog claims that the documents it has obtained show that a group of IPG’s London-based agencies created campaigns designed in part to convince government policymakers that Saudi Aramco was developing climate solutions – even as it planned to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in new oil and gas.

McCann Worldgroup (a part of IPG) devised Aramco’s 2021 “Powered by How” campaign, promoting Aramco’s preferred climate solutions, including low-carbon “blue” hydrogen and carbon capture.

Despite the campaign’s success in boosting brand trust, it is claimed that Aramco has no commercial-scale “blue” hydrogen production and captures only a tiny amount of the carbon dioxide it produces, which it uses to extract more hard-to-reach oil.

It is alleged that around 200 staff from 15 agencies, mostly London-based, work on Aramco projects under the internal name Well7. Their work is deliberately not publicised to avoid a backlash from other employees or environmental groups. Internal documents classify oil and gas alongside tobacco and gambling as “sin clients”.

IPG employees also said that leadership values the Aramco account because it has led to other lucrative contracts with the Saudi government, including the Kingdom’s Ithra cultural centre, chemicals company SABIC (now owned by Aramco), and the futuristic Neom city.

Report author TJ Jordan concluded: “Everything IPG does for its fossil fuel clients is aimed at influencing key decision-makers in corporate and political spheres, and making the fossil fuel revenue party last for as long as possible.”

Picture credit: Sabrina Bedford