Edelman and Omnicom top Clean Creatives’ 2025 F-List for fossil fuel ties

The advertising industry’s ties to fossil fuel clients are often kept in the shadows, but campaign group Clean Creatives is determined to drag them into the light.

Its latest F-List report for 2025 details 1,217 active or recent contracts between polluters and communication agencies, making it the most comprehensive database of its kind. The contracts span 709 agencies across the globe, covering every major holding company as well as independents.

Asia Pacific accounts for 275 of those contracts - a 26% jump on last year with Australia alone responsible for 156.

New signings include GRA Partners (GRACosway) with Alinta Energy, CMAX Advisory with BP, Font Public Relations with Tasmanian Gas Pipeline, Topham Guerin with Australians for Natural Gas and the Minerals Council of Australia, and SBS CulturalConnect with AGL Energy. Elsewhere, Ogilvy India has signed Jio-BP, Havas Play has taken on Nayara Energy, and Adfactors PR works with Bharat Petroleum.

Globally, Omnicom tops the league table with 120 contracts, followed by WPP with 82 and Publicis with 34. But Edelman stands out for another reason: its dependence on fossil fuel accounts.

For the first time, the F-List introduces a Fossil Fuel Income Risk Exposure (FFIRE) index, which overlays agency revenue with Big Oil contracts. The index ranks Edelman at the top, with 5.64% of its global income estimated to come from fossil fuel work — more than 20 times higher than Publicis and nearly 40 times higher than Dentsu.

That reliance creates what Clean Creatives calls an “existential conflict of interest,” given Edelman’s role as an agency of record for Shell and its newly announced work with the COP30 climate talks in Brazil.

“Globally, fossil fuel advertising and PR makes up less than 1% of marketing spend, while Edelman relies on polluters for more than 5% of their revenue. There is literally no agency worse suited for a role at COP30,” said Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives.

Nayantara Dutta, head of research at Clean Creatives, added that the report shows agencies’ claims of driving a transition to renewables don’t match reality. “In our fifth year of publication, we have found more contracts than ever before. The creative industry urgently requires an integrity check and large-scale systemic change,” she said.

The findings also reveal the techniques agencies use in Asia-Pacific, where Clean Creatives noted a recurring emphasis on “human connection” in fossil fuel campaigns - framing oil and gas companies as brands that care, even as their core business remains carbon-intensive.

Clean Creatives is now backed by over 1,400 agencies and 3,700 individual creatives who have pledged not to work with fossil fuel clients, a counterweight to the contracts uncovered in the F-List. The divide highlights an industry increasingly split between those betting on polluters and those positioning themselves as part of the clean-energy future.