The rumblings against fossil companies in the ad world
A Q&A with a reporter covering advertising's messy relationship with climate change
Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and I'm in the middle of an exhausting move.
(A fake "for your consideration" ad by Clean Creatives drawing attention to PR & marketing firm Edelman's work for oil compaines)
In the survey I did earlier this year, readers said they were interested in more Q&As, so when I found that advertising industry publication AdWeek had a sustainability editor covering everything from greenwashing claims to protests against oil and gas industry advertising coming from inside the industry, Kathryn Lundstrom went right to the top of my list of people to interview.
Kathryn's recent coverage from Cannes Lions (a major industry event) was largely focused on discussions about climate change happening among the people who write, design and plan advertising for major companies, as well as individual creatives who are pledging to never work with fossil fuel organizations or leaving agencies all together in protest. I wanted to ask her about what, if anything, that portends about how ad agencies and PR firms might approach polluting companies going forward.
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TKB: Your job is sustainability editor at AdWeek. Are you the first person to have this role and if so, do you know why it was important for AdWeek to have someone reporting on climate change & advertising?
Kathryn Lundstrom: Yes! I am the first person to have this role at Adweek. I was hired as a breaking news reporter in 2019. After a couple years, I was anxious to get into more beat reporting. So last summer I pitched the sustainability beat to my editors, they went for it, and I started as our first sustainability reporter in August 2021.
That went well — readers were really interested in the topic, as it’s increasingly important for brand marketers and ad agencies — so I was promoted to sustainability editor in January. In April, we published a sustainability-focused issue of the magazine for the first time, hosted a Sustainability Summit and released our first Sustainability Report.
Climate is a critically important topic for advertisers and marketers because advertising is so intertwined in everything we do. For better or for worse, messaging from advertisers shapes the way we all think about the world we live in.
In my role, I do a mix of accountability reporting (calling out greenwashing campaigns) and trend stories that look at how different industry players are changing to decrease their impact on climate or respond to consumer concerns related to climate.
There’s a lot of exciting movement in the industry, from activist campaigns working to push the industry away from fossil fuels to climate-focused advertising networks to groups trying to rethink the entire philosophy of the industry so that it focuses less on fueling consumption and more on promoting the system changes needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Some of your recent coverage was on discussions (and protests!) within the industry about whether they should be working with fossil fuel companies, and how to respond to climate change in general. Can you explain more about what kinds of conversations are happening among the industry? Why now? Do you see effort by groups like Clean Creatives gaining more traction?
I do think these groups are gaining traction. Clean Creatives was launched in 2020 and has now become a pretty well-known group within the industry. Solitaire Townsend—a strong climate advocate who also runs an ad agency—has also been gaining popularity with her message that creativity isn’t neutral, and advertisers have a critical role to play in helping spur behavior changes that will reduce human impact on climate.
Creatives for Climate is another huge global network of people in the advertising and marketing industry working to improve the industry’s handling of climate issues. And Purpose Disruptors is challenging the industry’s vision for what a “Good Life” is while developing methodologies for measuring the impact that advertising can have on carbon emissions based on how much more of a product is sold thanks to an ad campaign.
As for “why now,” I think there’ve been a series of things that force people to face our climate reality—increasingly grim predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, more extreme weather hitting more communities around the world, consumers demanding more sustainable products and talent looking to work for companies that have a real, well-conceived climate plan.
From my outsider's perspective, it seems like having clients that don’t match your values would happen a lot in this industry — what makes it different enough that some are pledging to not work with fossil fuel companies?
It definitely happens, but there is some precedent for cutting off certain industries—tobacco accounts used to be a huge moneymaker for ad agencies, and most refuse to work with them now since that industry kind of fell from grace in the 90s.
A lot of agencies also have policies to refuse work for companies like gun manufacturers. It’s also not uncommon for individual employees to have specific things they won’t work on because of personal values—for example, someone who has had personal experience with alcoholism might not want to work on alcohol brands, and agencies often will respect that, in my understanding.
Sustainability can have some fuzzy meanings — and some consumers are increasingly concerned about whether an ad campaign is greenwashing or not. Do you think execs and creatives are adjusting to this in how they are approaching campaigns? In who they work with?
Definitely. I often ask people to define “sustainability” when I start an interview, because the definition can vary widely. I think brands are really wary of being caught greenwashing, and misleading consumers on climate impact is getting riskier legally, too.
I also have heard from ad agency leaders that they’re staffing differently to ensure they can meet their clients’ needs when it comes to climate issues. They’re hiring more people with sustainable business backgrounds or even climate science backgrounds, because they need that expertise to make sure that they’re advising correctly on those issues.
Recently someone asked me what was the difference between, say, the famous ad campaign from the milk industry promoting milk versus an ad campaign from pipeline companies promoting the continued use of gas (because of this story I reported). Do you think ad agencies treat those kinds of requests equivalently? How does the history of tobacco advertising and the push back against it seem similar or different?
I think it totally depends on the ad agency. Some have really specific values that dictate the kind of brands they’ll work with, related to climate and other issues, while others have repeatedly defended their work with fossil fuel companies.
However, those campaigns that seek to sway public opinion on an issue in favor of industry interests, especially around an election, do have a similar feel. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was overlap between the PR and ad agencies involved, especially given what Bob Brulle’s research has shown about how there’s a handful of frequent fliers when it comes to oil and gas advertising.
What’s surprised you on this beat so far?
I don’t think I realized when I first pitched this beat that it’d have such a long and impactful history—PR and ad agencies, working on behalf of oil and gas companies, really shaped the way so many people in the U.S. think about climate change and fossil fuels. It’s wild to continue learning how deep that all goes. But I think I’ve also been surprised at how open and willing people within the ad industry are to talk about the impact that advertising has on society and on climate. It’s exciting to see so much happening.
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"Holy shit"
Because I am only one person, and I value my sanity, this newsletter very rarely gets into national climate policy coverage. But Sen. Manchin's sudden about-face on major climate legislation — even in its smaller-than-original-form — is still a big deal. The announcement surprised environmental lobbyists, other senators and hard-bitten climate commentators.
The bill is not passed yet, ("Don’t ask me about Kyrsten Sinema, because who knows") but notable items include 10-year tax credits for new zero-emissions power plants and expanded ones for carbon-capture projects, investments in reducing emissions from agriculture projects, domestic production of zero-emission tech and a increasing methane fee for leaky pipelines and production (and funding for, in theory, to clean up leaky pipes) as well as some oil & gas wins.
Of course, what I'm most interested in is how much of this will be passed to states to fund specific efforts. Much more on that later, if we get there.
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The Pacific Northwest faces another brutal heat wave
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Firm working for utility Florida Power & Light took control of Florida politics news site, let execs influence coverage.