Fossil fuels like tobacco: this time the call is to ban misleading advertising
Energy — di Stella Levantesi
Research shows how fossil fuel companies deceive people through online advertising. Activists are calling on Europe to ban it.
Fossil fuels like tobacco: this time the call is to ban misleading advertising
Research shows how fossil fuel companies deceive people through online advertising. Activists are calling on Europe to ban it.
Almost two thirds of social media posts published since late 2019 by six of Europe's largest fossil fuel companies present a "green", sustainable image, even though the companies' activities remain, for the most part, rooted in fossil fuels. This was revealed by a recent analysis carried out by DeSmog, an independent news platform that combats climate denial and disinformation, and published by Greenpeace Netherlands, which examines 3,034 adverts published on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube by six fossil fuel companies: Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell, France's TotalEnergies, Italy's Eni, Sweden's Preem, Spain's Repsol and Finland's Fortum.
Misleading advertising by fossil fuel companies
The investigation shows how the companies advertise their environmental efforts in a way that is disproportionate to the actual share of clean energy in their business. DeSmog's findings add to existing data and studies on the misleading communications of fossil fuel companies, which for decades have promoted a distorted image of their business models. This strategy continues today, at a time when the need to move towards decarbonisation is becoming ever more urgent. According to the analysis, fossil fuel companies use advertising to delay, distract and deflect attention from their own responsibility in terms of emissions and pollution.
It is partly for this reason that several advertising campaigns by fossil fuel companies have drawn criticism. In 2020, the Antitrust authority, the Autorità garante della concorrenza e del mercato, fined Eni five million euros for disseminating misleading advertising messages. The promotional campaign for Eni diesel+ used expressions such as "green diesel", "green component" and "renewable component", and made other environmental claims, such as "helps protect the environment. And by using it, so do you, thanks to a significant reduction in emissions." According to the Antitrust authority, "the product is an automotive diesel fuel which by its very nature is highly polluting and cannot be considered green." During the Agcom proceedings, Eni began discontinuing the campaign and, the press release states, committed to no longer using the word "green" in reference to automotive fuels.
The findings of the DeSmog investigation
- For all the companies examined, "green" adverts account for an average of 50 per cent of all advertisements, while only around 18 per cent of their portfolio consists of genuinely climate-friendly activities.
- The largest disparity between "green" advertising and investment in fossil fuels was found in Shell's advertisements, 81 per cent of which can be classified as greenwashing, against 80 per cent of its investments dedicated to oil and gas.
- Only 8 per cent of Eni's adverts promote fossil fuels, even though these actually make up around 80 per cent of its portfolio.
- 81 per cent of Preem's adverts promote "green" technologies or false solutions, compared to around 1 per cent of its portfolio dedicated to non-fossil energy.
- The company with the highest number of adverts dedicated to fossil fuels is Repsol (36 per cent of advertisements), while the one with the fewest is Fortum (zero).
- The estimated share of activities linked to fossil fuels ranges between 54 per cent (Fortum) and 90 per cent (Total) of the companies' portfolios.
- On average, 63 per cent of the advertisements analysed — almost two thirds — fall within the definition of greenwashing.
According to figures available from public corporate reports, on average 80 per cent of the companies' operations are rooted in oil and gas and, in one case, also in coal. The remaining 20 per cent represents investments outside fossil fuels, in sectors such as renewable energy, CO2 capture and storage, and research into new green technologies.
Yet half of the companies analysed dedicated more than 80 per cent of their posts to highlighting their involvement in green and climate-friendly activities, such as the development of research and projects for renewable energy. Furthermore, based on publicly available data, green investments account for an average of only 12 per cent of these companies' portfolios, DeSmog points out. The companies, in reality, continue for the most part to invest in the extraction, distribution and refining of fossil fuels. Precisely because the advertisements do not accurately reflect the reality of their commercial activities, the analysis highlights that the companies under consideration are engaged in greenwashing.
Greenwashing, a recurring strategy
Greenwashing is the misleading practice of promoting a product or service as green in order to divert attention from one's own responsibility in terms of pollution. In this sense, fossil fuel companies' advertising falls within greenwashing strategies, the Greenpeace Netherlands report underlines, since it mostly promotes green activities that in reality represent marginal operations, or promotes false climate solutions that are in fact harmful to the planet.
"[greenwashing] is without a doubt what these oil and gas companies are doing when they publicly mask their fossil operations behind a veneer of green marketing", Geoffrey Supran, a researcher in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, told DeSmog.
Greenwashing is used by the fossil fuel sector in order to deceive the public and deflect attention from its own responsibility, but this industry was not the first to deploy this strategy. The fossil fuel sector has followed the tobacco industry's playbook.
"Just as the tobacco industry did, the fossil fuel industry uses advertising and promotions to deflect attention from their harmful business models, deceive the public and politicians with false solutions, and ultimately delay climate action", Georgia Whitaker, campaign lead for Greenpeace Netherlands' Fossil Free Revolution campaign, told DeSmog. "Greenwashing is the new climate denial, and it is allowing the companies responsible for the climate crisis to hide in plain sight."
It is true that greenwashing falls within the pool of fossil fuel companies' denial efforts, but the sector's manipulation goes much further.
"I think 'greenwashing' tends to downplay the wrongful nature of the industry's communications", Karen Sokol, a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, told DeSmog. "It is a systematic misleading marketing campaign designed to interfere with the solution needed to address the climate emergency: halting the production of fossil fuels."
In this case, the key word is "systematic". The fossil fuel industry's climate denial does not begin and end with online greenwashing. Indeed, activists have been fighting for years to pressure regulators into introducing stricter rules on fossil fuel advertising. As with tobacco companies, the idea is to add "health warnings" to fossil fuel companies' advertisements, which would be a step forward, but not a real solution. This is why activists are now calling for a complete ban on advertising.
"The European Union has banned tobacco industry advertising and sponsorship for many years now, recognising that it poses a threat to health. It is time for a similar law against fossil fuel industries, which through their activities release enormous quantities of greenhouse gases and contribute to air pollution, with serious consequences for our health and that of the planet," said Federico Spadini, climate campaign manager at Greenpeace Italia. "Banning the advertising and sponsorships of the parties responsible for the climate crisis is an important step towards reducing their enormous power to influence the market and a media landscape increasingly polluted by greenwashing."
The problem of natural gas
One of the biggest problems with this type of advertising is that it promotes technological solutions that allow companies to continue with their own business as usual and therefore to emit and pollute without consequences. Moreover, some of these solutions are still far from efficient, are extremely costly, or simply "don't work," said Barnaby Pace, senior campaigner at Global Witness, speaking to DeSmog. As a result, governments promote these very same solutions by investing enormous sums of money that allow fossil fuel companies to continue their core business undisturbed rather than changing course and moving towards renewable energy.
According to DeSmog's analysis, around 4 per cent of the total posts analysed concern natural gas, which, despite being a fossil fuel that releases carbon dioxide and methane, continues to be presented as a bridging fuel. In Italy, natural gas continues to be promoted by fossil fuel companies and the government as the ideal solution. Eni, for example, told DeSmog that gas "in the long term" will represent more than 90 per cent of the company's hydrocarbon production and "will be an important support for intermittent sources in the energy transition."
The theme of the energy transition features in companies' advertising, but does not represent a concrete commitment. According to the analysis, for example, Shell currently channels 90 per cent of its long-term investments into fossil fuels, and between 2010 and 2018 dedicated just 1 per cent of its investments to low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar. Despite this, 13 per cent of Shell's posts focused specifically on renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power.
Fossil fuel companies and the social dimension, and "sportswashing"
An element of social greenwashing is also woven into the environmental one. Indeed, all six companies, DeSmog notes, devoted around 16 per cent of their advertising to social themes, with the aim of distracting the public from their climate and environmental responsibilities.
According to the investigation, the company with the largest share of ads — 37 per cent — focused on social themes is Eni. TotalEnergies has also partly concentrated its advertising on social initiatives: one in five of its online posts promotes social projects and initiatives.
Within this category, the analysis reveals a particular focus on sport, including partnerships with well-known sports figures and brands. Further research by DeSmog also found that five of the six companies (all except Fortum) were involved in sports sponsorships more broadly. The term "sportswashing" originally emerged to describe the behaviour of certain governments that use sport to improve their reputation — through hosting sporting events, buying or sponsoring sports teams, for example — and to divert attention from human rights violations. Today, the term sportswashing is being used ever more frequently in relation to oil and gas companies, which activists argue exploit the positive associations of sport to distract from their polluting activities.
If you're hearing terms like 'carbon neutral' or 'net zero' more and more often, it's because polluting industries want you to believe they're committed to a sustainable future.
Don't believe the hype.
bit.ly/3jowSTq
#Greenwashing
Don't believe the hype.
bit.ly/3jowSTq
#Greenwashing
Greenpeace's petition and the European citizens' initiative
In the face of the problems linked to misleading advertising by fossil fuel companies, pressure to halt fossil fuel advertising in Europe is growing. Greenpeace Italia has launched a petition calling on the European Union to introduce a law banning advertising and sponsorships by polluting companies.
"The world's most polluting multinationals are all active in the fossil fuel market and continue to pollute through their business, ignoring scientific warnings about climate change and health risks. They are indifferent to the victims of smog, landslides and floods, or the fires that devastate entire forests. But they are sensitive to their financial losses," reads the petition.
🙌In azione! Lanciata oggi l’Iniziativa dei Cittadini Europei per vietare le pubblicità e le sponsorizzazioni dell’industria dei combustibili fossili in UE #banfossilads #FossilFreeRevolution