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Public relations firms have been working alongside the fossil fuel industry to obstruct climate policy for decades, and Edelman’s recent connection with the Koch network is the latest example.
Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm, was working with the Koch network as recently as 2022—the same year that Edelman committed to a more robust climate strategy—according to publicly available tax documents first reported on by The Guardian. Known for funding climate denial front groups and its deep connections to the fossil fuel industry, Koch Industries and its sprawling network have been peddling climate disinformation for decades.
“PR and environmentally destructive companies—that’s a 100-year-old relationship,” said Melissa Aronczyk, media studies professor at Rutgers University. “So we shouldn’t be surprised that the PR industry is not at all neutral, and that it is very much committed to supporting fossil fuel interests if [the fossil fuel industry is] paying their bills.”
Despite the potential contradictions between Edelman’s climate commitments and its client roster, which includes “Big Oil” firms like Chevron and Shell, the relationship is not an anomaly. Rather, it falls in line with a long history of PR-led climate policy obstruction from local to global levels, said Aronczyk, who authored a 2022 book on the topic, A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism.
The trust illusion
The Koch network is a sprawling empire that includes oil extraction and refining, paper products, packaging materials, logistics, shipping and electronics.
While Edelman’s connection to the Koch Foundation was publicly disclosed in an IRS document required due to the foundation’s tax-exempt status, any relationships between Edelman and the network’s private counterparts would likely be kept confidential. Edelman did not answer Adweek’s question regarding whether it maintains relationships with other companies within the Koch network.
“We strongly disagree with the characterization of our work in recent articles and the ongoing campaign to undermine our public climate commitments and policies,” an Edelman spokesperson told Adweek via email. “Our work with the Koch Foundation ended in 2022. We are committed to our climate policy and playing an important role in the transition to net zero.”
In her book, Aronczyk demonstrates how PR practitioners themselves—in service of their fossil fuel clients—have shaped how people understand the environment as an issue of public concern. Rather than acting as neutral background players, PR firms have played an active and critical role during the past 100 years to frame polluting industries’ role as harmless, if not positive, on environmental issues. In the past 30 years, this has helped prevent the policymaking that is needed for timely climate mitigation and adaptation.
While the nature of PR aims to keep its achievements hidden from view, Aronczyk pulls its influence into the light.
As the world’s largest PR firm, Edelman has played this game exceedingly well. Last week, it released its 2024 Trust Barometer, an annual report that Edelman first released in 2002 and that it has long used as a way to manufacture trust in its clients—including fossil fuel companies and petrostates—according to documents uncovered by Clean Creatives and first reported by The Lever.
“Edelman is the creator of the Trust Barometer,” Aronczyk said, “and yet, this is clearly an agency that can’t be trusted when it comes to its climate commitments.”
Conflicts of interest abound
In 2022, when Edelman announced its updated climate strategy, the company also pledged to form an independent council of climate experts. That council, Edelman explained, would help guide the firm’s decision-making regarding its client roster and any climate-related work to avoid misinformation or greenwashing.
The nine-person council, as listed on Edelman’s website, includes climate leaders from Brazil, China, Denmark, Rwanda and the U.S., as well as a member of Shell’s board, Leena Srivastava.
“It’s so standard to see fossil fuel industry or company representatives on environmental boards of companies, and even some environmental organizations, all of it under this umbrella statement that ‘they have to be at the table, too,'” Aronczyk said.
Edelman defended Srivastava’s role on its climate council: “[Srivastava] joined our independent advisory council in 2022, and in 2023, she joined Shell’s board as an independent, non-executive director,” a spokesperson told Adweek via email. “She and Edelman’s leadership team are aligned in the belief that moving to a low-carbon economy requires collaboration and engagement with all parties critical to the transition, and her expertise and experience provide us with critical perspectives that make us better advisors to our clients.”
To Clean Creatives, the inclusion of Srivastava on Edelman’s advisory council is just further evidence that the PR firm has never been committed to climate action—and is simply using the terminology of the climate movement as cover while continuing business as usual.
“Richard Edelman says he wants his legacy to the PR industry to be trust, but in truth, his legacy will be climate denial,” Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives, said. “Edelman cannot claim to be on the side of its clients who believe in a safe climate future as long as it is working with the companies and clients that are pushing climate misinformation and inaction.”
