‘Go and work for someone with ethics’: Comms Declare’s brutal message for adland staff
Staff working for advertising companies still taking on fossil fuel clients should “go and work for someone with ethics” if they want to make a difference, according to Belinda Noble, the founder of Comms Declare.
Comms Declare and Clean Creative has released the 2023 F-list, an investigation into advertising companies with climate-polluting partners. Coincidentally, the list was published the same day as Havas announced its global win of the Shell media account.
This year, apart from creative, media, PR and communications agencies, the local list included outdoor media companies for the first time.
A Santos OOH campaign carried by JCDecaux. Photo: Comms Declare
The 2023 F-list found that more than 90 Australian agencies are believed to currently have fossil fuel clients, almost doubling the 54 agencies in 2022. Four agencies were removed.
Local agencies at the top of the list were JSW Research and SEC Newgate, each with seven fossil fuel companies. Globally, WPP has the most fossil fuel contracts with 55, followed by Omnicom with 39 contracts.
“In Australia, I think we just need to work more on education,” Noble told Mumbrella about this year’s list. “Agencies need to drill down into [fossil fuel] companies’ actual business and not take any headline promises as fact when they’re not backed up by rigorously funded business cases and plans.”
Taking today’s news from Havas as an example, Noble questioned how the agency group can work with clients like Shell while also committing to a goal like achieving carbon neutrality by 2025.
“The holding companies are really holding the industry back, and there are plenty of people working for smaller agencies or staff members in these big companies that are very uncomfortable with what’s going on in the top level,” she said.
Mumbrella contacted Havas Australia for comment.
Belinda Noble
Speaking of what employees can do on an individual level if that’s the case, Noble said there are two simple things they can do.
“One is advocating within the agency, and the second one is to go and work for someone with ethics.”
Comms Declare currently has more than 95 member agencies in Australia who have declared that they will not promote the growth of fossil fuels, and high greenhouse gas pollution as ‘business as usual’, and conduct deception, distraction or spin around science or climate actions.
“I can tell you that our member agencies are overwhelmed with people that want to work with them, because people want to do ethical work, and they don’t want these dirty clients on their portfolio,” she said.
“That’s a retention issue for bigger agencies as well. They’re going to lose their staff if they don’t start dropping these clients.”
OOH media companies Torch Media, JCDecaux and oOh!media were also named for running big brand campaigns for the likes of Ampol, Glencore, Santos and APPEA in this year’s list.
The list also included in-house teams lobbying for itself and its partners, such as Woodside whose team lobbies on behalf of partners including PetroChina International Investment, the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company.
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Darcy Song was a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She left in October 2023.
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This is a wildly insincere comment.
You made the F-List because you worked for a fossil fuel company. One could argue your F-listing is doubly deserved because you actively engaged in said fossil fuel company’s disingenuous green-washing efforts. You are part of the problem this article is attempting to highlight.
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This is one of the more outrageous pieces ever written on Mumbrella.
Imagine demanding that individuals and advertising agencies should be taking a greater responsibility while the government just allows these gigantic fossil fuel companies to pay virtually no tax and lobby our government into favourable legislation every election campaign.
Agency employee’s literally just out here trying to survive in a cost of living crisis, 80% of the office will never be able to afford to own their own home in a capital city, and you’re talking about representing fossil fuel companies and how it may reflect on the business. Honestly pull the other one.
How tone death can one person be.
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Nice to see PR jumping in the comments section.
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How’s this Jasmin, China installed more solar panels last year than USA has in it’s entire history combined. Or that their per capita emissions are almost less than half? They “don’t care?”
That’s ignoring the rest of the world offshoring the dirty manufacturing to China for convenience.
Ultimately all these comments will look absolutely bonkers after this upcoming Summer which will be bad and the following which will be absolutely catastrophic.
Reckoning with our decisions is part of an adult – it’s fine to work on an account like Santos or BHP but you also have to take responsibility for those consequences.
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@GretaT every single action we can possibly take is what will be required to halve our emissions. Suggesting you can’t take any action against the giants unless you’ve first tackled personal change is the type of thinking leading us to certain death. And very defensive of said fossil fuel polluters. All this said I’m sure Belinda Noble is considerably more conscious than most.
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Australia really is in a woke mess.
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I’m not being insincere at all Mark. Quite the opposite.
My client is the Government of South Australia and the event is the Tour Down Under which happens to be sponsored by Santos. It is no different to any of the hundreds of sporting sponsorship arrangements around the country that might involve a fossil fuel company.
Greenwashing intent by Santos or not, Tour Down Under is the ONLY sporting event on this list. Comms Declare should either list them all, or list none. A point that you manage to avoid in your comment.
You did point the finger at me as being part of the problem for reasons that have nothing to do with the article. That’s grandstanding.
Lobbing grenades like “go work for someone with ethics” requires Comms Declare to be both accurate and consistent in it’s application of “calling out” agencies. In this case it has failed on one or the other. Which one is it?
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It’s disappointing to once again make Comms Declare’s F-List for promoting a Cycling Race. It’s doubly disappointing to then be told to get educated by a group that can’t be bothered doing it’s own homework.
Either list every sponsorship deal involving a fossil fuel company or none. Anything else smacks of either a lack of education or just laziness.
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Seriously off-putting self righteousness – while its laudable that our industry encourage positive change to help the environment, shaming people into dropping clients and serious revenue really isn’t the way to do it
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Serious questions for Belinda Nobel.
Do you own an iPhone / android smartphone?
Do you own any technology that requires the use of batteries made using cobalt?
How many non-critical national/international flights have you been on in the past 2 years?
Do you own a car?
Once you’ve answered the above let’s talk about how serious you are when it comes to climate change.
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Does Belinda Noble think it is a better idea to denude the land of trees and blast up the ocean floor in favour of wind turbines – that DO NOT breakdown, solar panels – that also DO NOT break down and lithium batteries leaching into the ground and poisoning anything that is left while we sell our fossil fuels – our resources, to China and India who DO NOT CARE about the environment and will continue to burn it, only 100 times faster than we ever could so that they have fuel to live, industry to survive, and keep warm / cool. What about the demise of our forest industry? Now we will import all our wood from 3rd world countries where there are no regulations, and no replanting so their insect, animal and flora will become extinct, while we are destroyed by bushfires, and our industry and agriculture is decimated.
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Why does this article and the comment response remind me of McCarthyism?
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