FOREWORD
CHRIS PACKHAM CBE
Broadcaster & environmental campaigner
OUR PARTNERS
INTRODUCTION
Oil and gas giants like BP and Shell spend millions saturating UK media with misleading adverts. They falsely claim to be leading the energy transition, while continuing to expand fossil fuel production and locking us into climate disaster. Less than 1% (1) of their profits are invested in renewable energy and many are quietly scaling back their net-zero (2) commitments. Currently, only 7 out of 87 (3) energy companies operating in the North Sea have any plans for renewables investment to 2030 . Their ongoing extractive operations only deepen the climate crisis rather than offering solutions to it.
THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS AUTHORITY IS OUTGUNNED
Image credit: Shell/YouTube
Advertising for oil and gas products is increasingly deceptive, (4) with marketing teams being highly skilled at navigating the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)’s CAP 5 codes — guidelines intended to shield the public from misinformation. Adverts for oil and gas consistently and routinely deploy sophisticated language and imagery, designed to mislead the public, while staying just within the boundaries of the ASA codes. For example, a Shell advert in 2024 depicted wind farms along with the text “Shell is helping power the UK now and into the future” giving the impression that that future would be powered by wind.
The ASA received over seventy complaints from the public, yet due to the additional imagery of an oil and gas platform in the advert, Shell were able to avoid a ruling to remove it.
If the ASA does impose a ban, the ruling almost always arrives six months after a campaign has been running or even after it has ended, rendering the restriction totally ineffective. For example, in 2025, the ASA imposed a ban (6) on a Total Energies advert, stating that it “created the impression that TotalEnergies’ business activities were predominately focused on the development of renewable energies…
1 https://www.iea.org/reports/the-oil-and-gas-industry-in-net-zero-transitions/executive-summary
2 https://tinyurl.com/3n8wvw6x
3 http://bit.ly/3HXMNql
4 https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.kluwer/jeucml0010&div=8&id=&page= The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) CAP Codes set the rules for what is acceptable in advertising and marketing
5 communications, covering areas like honesty, decency, and social responsibility.
6 https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/totalenergies-se-a24-1246357-totalenergies-se.html
however a significant proportion of the energy products TotalEnergies produced and sold were fossil-fuel related products” (7)
By the time that ruling had been made, the advert had already been widely circulated across a range of social media platforms and the misleading information had been disseminated. In reality, the ASA are consistently outpaced, outmatched and outwitted by the resources, scale and sophistication of advertising campaigns funded by oil and gas companies’ budgets.
A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS
Aside from the devastating impacts that fossil fuels have on the climate, the direct harms from burning fossil fuels are well documented with the British Medical Journal (8) estimating that in 2023 alone, this was the cause of over 5 million deaths globally. In 8 May 2025, over 30 health organisations (representing around 12 million health professionals worldwide), pledged to no longer work with advertising agencies that service fossil fuel clients. They stated conflicts of interest from the negative health effects of disinformation campaigns of fossil fuel use. In 2024, The UK Faculty of Public Health issued a statement which called for the “end of climate-harming advertising and sponsorships that promote sectors such as fossil fuel companies” . (9) Doctors in Ireland recently called for a ban on advertising for fossil fuels (10) , and WHO Public Health Director Maria Neira has supported a ban on fossil fuel adverts for years, describing them as “the new tobacco” . (11)
A comparison to tobacco advertising is highly relevant. In 2003, when advertising for tobacco was finally banned in the UK, it was estimated (12) there were a similar number 12 of deaths per year globally due to smoking as there are now from fossil fuels, around 4.8 million. Although the ban faced fierce resistance from powerful tobacco companies and other vested interests, the continued harm caused by tobacco advertising had become indefensible.
7 https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/totalenergies-se-a24-1246357-totalenergies-se.html
8 http://bit.ly/3GnqtWt
9 http://bit.ly/44lgito
10 http://bit.ly/4nmEmVq
11 http://bit.ly/4lqxwww
12 http://bit.ly/44wAzgZ
FOSSIL FUEL ADVERTS UNDERMINE NET ZERO
UK net zero goals are significantly undermined by fossil fuel advertising. Recent research (13) commissioned by the Climate Change Committee, found that up to sixty percent of reductions in emissions need to come
from consumer behaviour change. To reach net zero goals, large-scale electrification of several sectors including transport and heating will need consumer adoption. The UK government aims to significantly increase the uptake of domestic heat pumps to 600k installations per year (11-fold increase on current numbers). However, this is being severely undermined by messaging which asserts a renewable energy transition is in-hand and oil and gas are part of the consumer’s future. This is just one example of how advertising from oil and gas majors frustrates
SPORTS AND CULTURAL SPONSORSHIP
For big oil and gas, sport as well as culture sponsorship has the same appeal that it had for tobacco companies. For sports, it’s a clean, youthful, healthy image which offers the opportunity to ‘sport wash’ their polluting products. For culture, the sponsorship extends a kind of intellectual social licence to operate as oil and gas companies align themselves with the cultural foundations of our society.
Both sport and culture reach huge audiences moving past geographical boundaries through global media coverage. Both these sectors are already realising their audiences want change. For instance Rugby Football Union turned down ExxonMobil over worries of a fan backlash and The British Museum, The Tate, National Portrait Gallery and Royal Opera House have all ended partnerships with fossil fuel companies due to similar concerns. Losing sponsorship money is difficult, but losing an audience or fan base is worse. Banning sponsorship for fossil fuel companies is entirely possible - tobacco sponsorship in sport is now almost non-existent and sport and culture has continued to thrive. There is a growing cultural shift and momentum behind the recognition that fossil fuel companies, whose actions are driving environmental destruction, cannot continue to launder their reputations through sponsorship money.
13 https://bit.ly/40lIXgQ
BANS HAVE WIDE SUPPORT
Support for a ban on fossil fuel adverts comes from the public with a recent UK citizens jury (14) finding strong support for advertising bans, as well as restrictions and warnings. A European survey (15) in March 2025, of over 19,000 individuals (across 13 EU 15 Member States) found “widespread support for banning fossil fuel advertisements in public spaces.”
An important new finding is that very senior advertising industry insiders also support an advertising ban for oil and gas products. Research from CAST (16) explored the views of senior UK advertising professionals on this issue (see briefing 35) (17) and found that many professionals had petitioned their agencies to cut ties with fossil fuel clients. Being largely unsuccessful in this, they now support a government ban on fossil fuel advertising.
In 2024, at the highest level of the United Nations, the Secretary-General António Guterres called for a ban on fossil fuel advertising, asking that all advertising agencies drop their oil and gas clients and “stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction.” (18)
BANS ALREADY WORK
The UK would not be the first government to ban adverts for fossil fuels. In 2022, France implemented (19) a ban on adverts for oil and gas products after a citizen’s jury vote and countries such as Canada and Ireland are now considering the same. Cities including Edinburgh, Sheffield, Amsterdam, The Hague and Stockholm have already implemented a ban (20) as well as Cheshire, Chester and Medway councils. There are currently around 46 municipalities and regions worldwide that have issued bans through a mix of ordinance and private law (21) and research shows (22) that bans of this kind conform with European law. Crucially, it’s important to note that revenue loss is minimised, as advertising for other products and services replaces those from fossil fuels . (23)
14 http://bit.ly/3I3ZPT0
15 https://capableclimate.eu/fossil-fuel-ad-ban-support/
16 Climate Action and Social Transformations, a cross-institutional research centre led by Prof. Lorraine Whitmarsh 17 https://cast.ac.uk/cast-briefings/
18 http://bit.ly/4l1EMiq
19 http://bit.ly/3TbmxuM
20 http://bit.ly/40tDSmB
21 https://www.worldwithoutfossilads.org/frequently-asked-questions-2/
22 http://bit.ly/3I5vVhh
23 http://bit.ly/4eAKLsf
MINIMAL COMMERCIAL CONSEQUENCES
The advertising and media sector are not heavily reliant on fossil fuel revenues - research from Clean Creatives (24) estimate that percentage annual global revenue from oil and gas clients for advertising and PR firms sits at around 0.7% on average. Whilst oil and gas revenues are important in this sector, the loss of them would be unlikely to be commercially detrimental. Many agencies thrive without oil and gas clients. As of June 2025, over 1400 independent agencies worldwide signed the Clean Creatives Pledge (25) which promises not to work for fossil fuel companies. However, in the UK, agencies in the six largest holding groups continue to work with fossil fuel clients.(26)
ACTION IS NECESSARY
To protect UK citizens and support the Government's objectives on climate, MPs must now support measures to end fossil fuel advertising in the UK. This is a low cost, high-impact step to reduce mortality, build public trust in the net zero transition, and stop highly profitable polluters misleading the public. If you are an MP, please speak in this debate and back the measures to ban fossil fuel advertising.
AUTHOR Dr Victoria Harvey
With fifteen years of experience working in the UK advertising production sector, Victoria’s academic research examines institutional mechanisms towards low carbon transformations in the advertising industry. She is a CAST affiliate and works at Small World Consulting, an organisation led by Professor Mike Berners-Lee, where her work focuses on carbon mapping and sustainability strategies.
24 http://bit.ly/4nkYvv9 (see page 18)
25 https://cleancreatives.org/home
26 The six largest advertising and PR holding groups are WPP, Omnicom, Havas, Publicis, Interpublic Group, Dentsu.