Two of the most important promoting companies on the planet — WPP London and Publicis Groupe NYC — confronted heavy backlash from local weather activists for his or her involvement with fossil gasoline firms on July 25, 2025.
Publicis Groupe turned the most important promoting group globally in 2024 with €13.965 billion in internet income, barely surpassing WPP, which reported a income of €13.33 billion. Each stay among the many high world promoting firms, alongside others like Omnicom and Dentsu.
The London headquarters of the WPP group was occupied by local weather activists from ‘Lower The Ties to Fossil Fuels’. The protesters dropped a 15-meter banner from the Thames river embankment stating “WPP are Local weather Criminals, Ban Fossil Gasoline Promoting”.
As a substitute of a ‘sit-in’, the activists staged a ‘die-in’ in entrance of the WPP headquarters, wrapped in funeral shrouds bearing logos of WPP’s “Large Oil” shoppers and Coca-Cola.
The Grim Reaper was additionally noticed on an oil rig on the web site of the protest as a part of a avenue theatre show orchestrated by the ‘Oil Slickers’ group.
WPP holds at the least 79 fossil gasoline contracts with main polluters like Adani, BP, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, TotalEnergies, SLB (Schlumberger), Shell (since 1929) and plenty of extra.
These associations, activists argue, contradict WPP’s personal sustainability coverage, which is “not tackle any shopper work, together with lobbying designed to frustrate the aims of the Paris Settlement”.
The Paris Settlement is a legally binding worldwide treaty on local weather change adopted by 196 nations on the twenty first Convention of the Events (COP 21) in Paris. It was signed on December 12, 2015, to restrict world warming to nicely beneath 2 levels Celsius, in comparison with pre-industrial ranges.
WPP has additionally been accused of offering greenwashing coaching to its staff to conduct ‘inexperienced’ campaigns which have received awards just like the Marketing campaign Advert Web Zero Awards, geared toward celebrating the promoting trade’s efforts in sustainability.
On the identical day, Extinction Riot NYC, one other group devoted to local weather activism, staged a protest outdoors Publicis Groupe’s New York Metropolis headquarters.
The protesters used avenue theatre and blockaded the constructing’s entrance by chaining activists to the doorways to ship a message.
Ten activists, together with two minors, had been arrested through the demonstration, which coincided with a extreme heatwave in New York Metropolis.
Publicis Groupe holds 40 contracts with fossil gasoline firms, together with Saudi Aramco and TotalEnergies, regardless of its local weather coverage making no point out of fossil fuels.
Publicis Groupe’s ‘Web Zero Local weather Coverage’ goals for “Web Zero” emissions by 2040 and a voluntary shift to 100% renewable power by 2030.
UN Secretary-Common António Guterres has strongly condemned PR and promoting companies in his June 5 deal with on the American Museum of Pure Historical past in NYC, to mark World Atmosphere Day.
He accused the companies of being “enablers to planetary destruction” and urged them to “Cease taking up new fossil gasoline shoppers, from right this moment, and set out plans to drop your current ones”.
He additionally argues that governments ought to ban fossil gasoline promoting similar to they’ve banned promoting from the tobacco trade as a result of its dangerous impression on the planet.
Written with the View : afaqs
