Oil and gas companies such as Shell, BP, Total, Chevron and ExxonMobil use advertising to promote themselves as ‘environmentally conscious’ businesses. Looking at their adverts you could be forgiven for thinking they are mostly renewable energy companies. Whilst the messaging and narratives have shifted in recent years, the reality is that the investment plans of these companies remain almost entirely focused on the continuing exploration of oil and gas reserves.
Above: a 2026 analysis by Clean Creatives of 1,859 marketing campaign materials of fossil fuel companies outlined the shifting narrative of major polluters.
Advertising by the fossil fuel industry and other high-emitting industries plays a central role in delaying the energy transition and preventing the phase out of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel advertising has been shown to create positive cues for fossil fuel products which stimulates demand and normalises consumption.
Research in the Journal of European Consumer and Market Law also warns about the pernicious effects of fossil fuel companies’ “greenwash advertising” that strongly misguides the public, and makes it harder to hold these companies accountable for their damaging activities. BP, for example, has been criticised for using adverts disproportionately to promote their renewable energy projects, which only make up 4% of their total investments, while 96% remains in oil and gas. In 2020, the UK body that regulates advertising, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), ruled that Shell made misleading environmental claims in its advert about carbon offsetting.
The environmental law firm Client Earth carried an investigation into nine major fossil fuel companies’ marketing campaigns exposing how their “green” advertising messages do not fit with the reality of their business models based on increased fossil fuels extraction. Analysis in 2021 by Desmog into six major European fossil fuel and energy companies found that two thirds of their social media posts were greenwashing.
In 2018, major oil companies spent $50 billion on fossil fuel projects in direct contradiction of the Paris climate goals according to research group Carbon Tracker. Companies such as Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips have often used advertising as as part of their lobbying to block climate legislation in the United States. From 1986 to 2015, the five biggest fossil fuel companies in the US spent a total of $3.6 billion on adverts.