A handful of “small however soiled” public affairs and legislation companies in Europe are enabling air pollution by lobbying extensively for giant oil, an evaluation has discovered, with most main corporations within the trade working for no less than one fossil gas shopper.
A number of of the highest spenders on actions to affect EU policymaking are on the payroll of oil and fuel corporations, in line with an evaluation of the EU Transparency Register by the Good Foyer nonprofit, however fossil gas shoppers symbolize simply 1% of the trade’s income.
The researchers mentioned it confirmed that public affairs corporations might lower ties with the large polluters who pay them to affect coverage with out hurting their backside strains – however warned there was little public or regulatory stress on lobbyists to go inexperienced.
Alberto Alemanno, the founding father of the Good Foyer and a co-author of the analysis, mentioned public affairs corporations lobbying on behalf of the fossil gas trade had flown below the radar. “They will afford to maintain [these clients] – though they convey in little or no – as a result of they’ve mainly not been topic to any type of accountability.”
Within the first complete evaluation of lobbying companies working for oil and fuel corporations, which was shared solely with the Guardian, the researchers created a database of public affairs and legislation companies, in addition to their shoppers, utilizing disclosures made on the EU transparency register earlier than January 2024. They tallied the midpoint of the lobbying prices, which the register publishes solely in ranges, to estimate the amount of cash every firm receives from fossil gas shoppers.
The listing doesn’t embrace fossil gas trade teams or secondary polluters, reminiscent of airways and carmakers.
Among the corporations have deepened their ties with large oil during the last 12 months, in line with checks performed by the Guardian utilizing disclosures made as of April 2025. A number of have additionally made public sustainability commitments that seem to distinction with the actions of their shoppers, reminiscent of vitality corporations who’ve scrapped local weather targets or proven little progress in the direction of lowering emissions.
Burson, Cohn & Wolfe, a public affairs firm, is listed as having taken €600,000-699,999 from ExxonMobil Petroleum and Chemical in 2024 for lobbying companies on a number of setting recordsdata. Burson says on its web site “we assist vitality shoppers navigate the transition towards sustainable progress”.
One other firm, FTI Consulting, is listed as having taken €300,000-399,999 from ConocoPhillips and €50,000-99,999 from ExxonMobil in 2023, the most recent 12 months for which it has disclosed shoppers. Its newest sustainability report says: “FTI Consulting’s function as knowledgeable companies agency permits us to help a sustainable financial system – each by our inner initiatives and the work we do on behalf of our shoppers.”
A 3rd firm, Nove, is listed as having taken €100,000-199,999 from ExxonMobil and €100,000-199,999 from Equinor in 2024, in addition to smaller sums from ENI, TotalEnergies and SNAM. A case research on Nove’s web site says it helped a shopper forestall the European Fee from banning “essential chemical substances” in a regulatory proposal to cut back climate-damaging fluorinated fuel emissions.
It says: “We introduced our shopper’s place and demonstrative knowledge to the eye of the co-legislators, efficiently creating room for an exemption for protected closed-loop use of fluorinated gases with out economically or chemically viable substitutions.”
The researchers mentioned they needed to shine a lightweight on enablers of air pollution who present companies for the fossil gas trade however escape public consideration. Related efforts have helped spur change within the promoting trade, with the Clear Creatives motion protecting greater than 1,300 companies who overtly refuse to work with fossil gas shoppers.
Duncan Meisel, the chief director of Clear Creatives, mentioned dropping fossil shoppers was a sensible enterprise technique for public affairs companies as a result of it might assist them advocate for all corporations of their portfolio – together with those who could be hit onerous by local weather breakdown. It could additionally assist them appeal to and retain expertise, reminiscent of younger graduates who see the local weather disaster as an existential menace, and keep away from potential crackdowns by regulators, he added.
Public affairs companies are only one avenue by which vitality corporations search to sway European policymakers. Most of the greatest gamers make use of massive groups of lobbyists in Brussels or work by well-connected trade associations which have the ear of EU officers and ministers in nationwide governments.
In consequence, a naming-and-shaming marketing campaign could solely have restricted impact on local weather coverage, trade insiders say. Fossil gas corporations have already made efforts to develop lobbying capabilities in-house, and a climate-driven rift within the trade would most likely drive those who haven’t but achieved so to the lobbying companies that select to proceed working with them.
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However such a shift would nonetheless make it harder for polluters to face in the way in which of local weather motion, mentioned Meisel. “Even when fossil gas corporations utterly in-house their lobbying, they’ll have to drag from a dwindling pool of expertise that’s not focused on devoting their complete careers to polluters.
“Typically talking, fossil gas corporations are usually not high-prestige shoppers. They don’t win awards, they don’t get listed prominently on resume websites, and so they don’t supply a long-term profession path. Polluter companies would be the companies with much less expertise and fewer impression, and sure larger charges.”
Among the public affairs corporations highlighted within the evaluation disagreed with the characterisation of their shoppers as fossil-based. Aula Europe, which is listed as having taken €100,000-199,999 from Neste between April 2022 and March 2023, mentioned its shopper had reworked from “an area oil refiner into a worldwide chief in renewable and round options”.
“Aula’s public affairs work with Neste has centered on renewable vitality and EU decarbonisation insurance policies related to this transformation,” mentioned Henri Satuli, a lobbyist at Aula Europe.
Should and Companions, which is listed as having taken €50,000-99,999 from the Italian vitality firm A2A in 2024, offered an announcement from A2A that disputed its classification as a fossil gas firm, stating: “In 2024, renewables accounted for about 50% of the group’s whole electrical energy manufacturing, highlighting A2A’s concrete progress towards a cleaner vitality mannequin.”
The opposite public affairs companies named within the evaluation – together with Hill and Knowlton, Weber Shandwick, Rud Pedersen, FleishmanHillard and Eupportunity – didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Dieter Zinnbauer, a researcher and adviser to the Good Foyer, mentioned it was telling that lots of the public affairs companies highlighted within the evaluation centered their public sustainability statements round actions to cut back their direct carbon footprint.
“It’s one factor to recycle toner cartridges in your workplace, that’s nice,” he mentioned. “But when your primary enterprise line is about serving to put the world on the mistaken monitor in the direction of the vitality transition, that is extra consequential by way of what you’re doing than the recycling you do on the aspect.”
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