Pivoting away from fossil fuel money isn’t just a social and environmental obligation; it’s smart business.

For decades, fossil fuel contracts represented reliable big-budget projects that felt like landing the jackpot. For creative agencies, especially, these opportunities still present lucrative financial and creative prospects that are hard to look beyond, but now we’re at a crossroads. 

According to a new report by industry advocacy group Clean Creatives, these substantial yet – let’s be honest – dirty marketing budgets no longer represent the financial opportunities they once did.

According to their analysis, Profitable Growth Without Fossil Fuels, the financial future of media, advertising and PR agencies lies in the much greener growth industries that are ramping up to replace fossil fuels many times over. 

Following the money

The report makes a compelling case against pursuing new fossil fuel clients beyond 2025. Why? Because it reveals genuine risks to reputation and legitimate economic consequences.

In their numbers-based roadmap – the first of its kind to calculate the scale of fossil fuel marketing budgets – they pave a clear, financially viable off-ramp strategy. 

According to the report, while the top 29 fossil fuel companies spend an estimated $7 billion annually on advertising, PR and marketing, this figure still represents less than 1% of global marketing spend. That’s right. Despite all the noise, as far as global marketing budgets go, the fossil fuel industries’ spend is barely any more than spare change. 

Seems that the controversy and hype around those beautiful, albeit often greenwashed campaigns have skewed our perception of just how important these contracts really are. 

“Fossil fuel companies are not a growth industry. Clean energy makes up the vast majority of new energy development worldwide,” said Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives. “It’s important to prepare now and to embrace industries that will grow as fossil fuels decline.”

The market is already moving

So what exactly is the new way forward? 

Within a broader economic context, fossil fuels do still dominate the energy market; however, investment is rapidly moving toward renewables, indicating the clean energy transition is already here. 

And this shift has real implications for agencies. 

With the impacts of global warming already damaging crucial industries such as agriculture, tourism and insurance — all sectors that rely heavily on marketing — agencies risk alienating their future client base by continuing to prop up polluters.

So, too, do they risk pursuing contracts in a shrinking industry. Offramping takes time, so the time to act is now. 

A deeper dive into emerging industries shows that future growth opportunities also lie elsewhere. Healthcare costs linked to the climate crisis are projected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2050. That’s equivalent to $55 billion annually between now and then. 

Meanwhile, the circular economy is forecast to be worth $4.5 trillion by 2030. As these industries expand, they need the creative marketing and communications expertise that we all have — and they also represent a cleaner, safer and more forward-thinking way of doing business. All the while, global clean energy investment exceeded $2 trillion in 2024, which is more than double what was spent on fossil fuels.

“There is a future for the marketing industry that does not include fossil fuels,” the report states. “This future is better for business, for people and for the planet. There are sizable opportunities to replace revenue.”

There are reputational costs, too

Risks to reputational harm cannot be overstated, either. 

With public trust in marketing, PR and media at an all-time low, consumers are also experiencing first-hand the devastating effects of climate change. Not only do extreme weather events expose communities to the harsh realities and fear of a changing climate, but the warming climate is set to cost the average American over $500,000 in a lifetime. 

In 2024, the German Insurance Association reported a total of €5.7 billion in insured losses from extreme weather events, €1 billion above the long-term average. Throughout the world, we’re set to spend a lot more on insurance to live where we want to live. And none of these numbers factor in the current eight million premature deaths that are caused by pollution-related heart and lung disease globally.

This shift in public sentiment is reflected in business practices, too. An increase in B-Corp certifications or ESG policy requirements as part of procurement processes indicates that more and more organisations are advocating for climate leadership within the creative industries. 

So, too, are organisations becoming increasingly shy of working with agencies that also represent large polluters. Leading agencies such as Havas, Eidelman and WPP have already experienced reputational as well as economic consequences of maintaining strong ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Within a year of securing their deal with Shell, Havas laid off 12% of their global staff and lost 15 clients, citing reputational harm and negative publicity as a direct result of their affiliation with the fossil fuel giant.

Over the last ten years, Eidelman also faced widespread criticism for playing both sides of the debate — advocating for climate action while remaining heavily affiliated with many oil and gas companies. 

While the rest of us don’t really know why Edelman lost its standing as the world’s largest PR firm, losing clients such as We Mean Business and Nike as a direct result of their fossil fuel affiliations cannot be helpful.

The writing is on the wall

Still, creative agencies have long defended their work for fossil fuel companies as a stable source of income and job creation. 

Some agencies even argue they can still help transition the industry from within. But is that really true? The climate agenda has been on the table for decades now, and there’s been no meaningful change within the industry. As for the economic argument, growing scrutiny has prompted debate within the sector on that, too. 

In the time since UN Secretary General António Guterres urged “every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies” in 2024, over 50 jurisdictions have. A further 16 countries and 130 jurisdictions are in the process of establishing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, and some independent agencies have already signed the Clean Creatives pledge to refuse fossil fuel contracts.

There’s also a clear historical precedent. 

In the same way the tobacco industry once relied on advertising to hide the public health crisis it created, fossil fuels are reaching the end of their PR road — they can no longer defend their industry as being for the greater good. By the time governments banned tobacco advertising in the late 1990s, agencies that had clung to tobacco contracts were left reputationally damaged and scrambling to replace lost revenue.

The same is true for the swift decline of coal in the UK. Once the backbone of the nation’s energy industry, coal still generated almost 40% of electricity as recently as 2012. Within less than a decade, that figure had collapsed to under 2%. 

For marketing and PR agencies, once again, coal clients swiftly went from business as usual to marginal.

A roadmap for change

Thankfully, there’s a blueprint for agencies to assess their client portfolios and model revenue replacement strategies. 

The report seeks to demonstrate that a planned offramp is both financially and strategically feasible within five years. The time when fossil fuel companies could bankroll the creative industries without scrutiny is over, and what an opportunity that presents! 

While advertising, PR and marketing face an uncomfortable choice driven by legitimate economic realities, building the brands and nurturing the ideas that give us a greener, safer and healthier future is genuinely worth switching for. The time to leverage our creative powers to secure the health and well-being of everyone and define our economic future, is now. 

Contact us to learn about our “Be Part of the Solution, Not the Pollution” workshop, designed to help your creatives and marketers navigate our relationship with pollution.