Every year, campaign group Clean Creatives releases an F-List (and yes, it means what you think it does).
The F-List is the world’s largest database tracking the relationships between fossil fuel companies and their creative partners, and this years’ is their biggest yet. F-List 2025 exposes 1,217 active or recent contracts across 709 PR and marketing agencies — more than any year since the project began.
So who are this years’ biggest… failures?
Unsurprisingly, Europe emerged as the largest region for fossil fuel contracts, accounting for 26% of global fossil fuel contracts, up 29% from last year.
Within Europe, the UK leads the way, followed by France and Spain. Notably, new relationships were forged between WPP’s Burson Spain and local fossil fuel giant Moeve (formerly Cepsa), Carat Spain (Dentsu) signed with Spanish fossil fuel giant Repsol, and SEC Newgate UK with Centrica, the owner of British Gas.
The report highlights the dominance of global holding companies in these partnerships. Omnicom leads with 120 fossil fuel contracts, followed by WPP (82) and Publicis (34).
Among fossil fuel clients, Shell remains the most active in their campaigning, with 69 active contracts.
This year, Clean Creatives also introduced their first Fossil Fuel Income Risk Exposure (FFIRE) Index, which measures agencies’ reliance on polluter contracts in their share of annual revenue. Edelman ranked highest, with 5.64% of its income tied to fossil fuels, including Shell, Chevron, and ADNOC.
By comparison, WPP’s exposure stands at 0.68% and Omnicom’s at 0.55% which are more representative of the market. With collective fossil fuel marketing spend sitting at not quite 1%, these figures leave Edelman around five-and-a-half times more exposed than its competitors. More than that, it puts into further question their credibility as the lead PR agency responsible for the media strategy at COP 30.
“Edelman’s dependence on fossil fuel revenue demonstrates a profound conflict of interest in its role at COP30,” said Duncan Meisel, Executive Director of Clean Creatives. “If the UN climate talks succeed, Edelman faces an existential threat to their revenue—that’s the definition of a conflict of interest.”
The findings underscore what Clean Creatives calls a “systemic failure of integrity” in the creative industries, which continue to help fossil fuel companies position themselves as leaders in the energy transition despite all the evidence urging for the phase out of coal, oil and gas.
Yet, the report also points to positive changes, too.
Over 1,400 agencies worldwide have now signed the Clean Creatives pledge to refuse fossil fuel contracts, alongside more than 3,700 individual creatives, as well. The widening divide suggests that while many large agencies remain tied to polluters, momentum is building toward a more sustainable, climate-aligned future for the industry.
Watch this video to learn more about Clean Creatives and the F-List:
