Edelman Criticized for Work With Oil Companies

Mr. Edelman and other company leaders did not address more than 50 questions about Edelman’s oil and gas work submitted by employees in a chat room accompanying the video meeting. Many of those questions expressed skepticism about Edelman’s work for fossil fuel companies while championing environmental initiatives.

As global warming takes a worsening toll on the planet, the energy industry is working to reduce climate-damaging emissions by investing in a technology known as carbon capture and storage, among other ventures. At the same time, 45 banks, insurers and asset managers have pledged to use the $130 trillion they control to hit net-zero emissions targets in their investments by 2050, a goal that critics have said doesn’t go far enough because the financial institutions continue to invest in fossil fuel companies.

A number of public relations companies and advertising agencies have cut ties with the oil and gas industry in recent years, wary of burnishing the images of companies that have played a role in damaging the environment. Edelman’s strategy is less clear-cut. It says on its website that it thinks “very carefully about which businesses we work for.”

The 69-year-old company has a longstanding relationship with fossil fuels. It began working with Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, more than 15 years ago. This fall, as Edelman prepared to move its headquarters out of the Aon Center in Chicago, Mr. Edelman wrote a blog post that described how his father had loved the location: “He was so proud that his company was in the same building as giant Standard Oil of Indiana.”

In a statement to The New York Times, Edelman said that it was “unable to comment on specific client engagements due to confidentiality commitments with all of our clients,” adding that it would not work with climate change deniers, a policy the company established in 2015.

Companies in the business of shaping public opinion are likely to side with oil and gas companies for as long as they can keep taking their money, which can be significant, said Christine Arena, who resigned as an executive vice president of Edelman’s corporate responsibility division in 2015 along with five colleagues who had expressed concerns about the company’s work for fossil fuel clients.

“The agency was more weighted toward fossil fuel clients and, therefore, the interests of those clients, and that will probably continue as long as fossil fuel marketers don’t face the types of restrictions that tobacco or pharmaceutical companies face,” said Ms. Arena, who now runs a production company, Generous Films.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/business/media/a-p-r-giant-is-caught-between-climate-pledges-and-fossil-fuel-clients.html