How Clean Creatives made itself known at Cannes this year

All was quiet on the climate front this year at Cannes. Or was it?

Compared to last year, which saw Greenpeace storming beaches and jumping on stages, this year’s festival may have appeared relatively calm. However, groups like Clean Creatives were on the ground, reminding people—and specifically Richard Edelman—about the harms of working with fossil-fuel companies.

Duncan Meisel is executive director of Clean Creatives, an initiative he started in 2020 to sever ties between agencies and fossil-fuel companies. According to the organization, since its inception, 600 agencies have pledged to stop working with fossil-fuel clients, including Forsman & Bodenfors, Hunter, and Moxie Media.

We spoke with Meisel at Cannes about the group’s strategies—including the first Next Level Climate Summit, which it co-hosted at this year’s festival—and whether the movement to get agencies to stop working with fossil-fuel companies is gaining traction.

Making a splash

At a festival where companies are spending six figures on beach rentals and offering free concerts, it can presumably be hard for an advocacy group to compete for both space and time.

“It’s always expensive and difficult,” Meisel told us. Still, he said it was worth it to be present to speak with brand and agency leaders, hear feedback, and show people how to get involved in the Clean Creatives movement.

Partnering with the Embassy of Dutch Creativity, he said, meant that the group could  host the Next Level Climate Summit on the Croisette, across from the likes of Freewheel and Google. While the venue “wasn’t a giant room,” he said, “we filled the room.”

Conversations ranged from shifting economies of scale in ad buying to greenwashing. The group also announced that Gale had committed to no longer working with fossil-fuel companies, becoming the largest agency to take the pledge.

Outside of the summit, Clean Creatives also made itself known at Cannes via pop-ups, posters, and stunts: It followed Richard Edelman, CEO of global PR firm Edelman, and other execs from the company with signs saying, “This person works with fossil fuel clients” and “This agency is happy to greenwash fossil fuels.” Another Clean Creative rep called out Edelman for its work with fossil-fuel brands during a panel that included Amanda Edelman, who runs the firm’s Gen Z lab.

“We brought a team of people who are 30 and under, or early in their careers, or focused on climate communication,” Meisel said. “Their voices aren’t prioritized in the places where decisions are made. We think they have a role to play, and we wanted to make sure they were heard.”

According to Meisel, the group has specifically focused on Edelman because it does “more work with fossil-fuel leaders than any agency,” including companies like ExxonMobil and Shell, and has “increased their work with companies doing a lot of damage.” Meisel added that Edelman has “clearly changed some policy, but we don’t know how substantive that is.”

Edelman declined to answer a question about whether it has increased work with fossil-fuel companies in recent years.

Meisel acknowledged on LinkedIn that the Richard Edelman stunt generated “tricky conversations,” but went on to say that agencies should not be ashamed of their client relationships. “Either you are proud of your work with fossil-fuel polluters and should welcome this visibility, or you should leave them,” he wrote.

Shortly after the stunt, he told us, “We’re always as polite as we can be. We always try to be factually driven. But sometimes you need to be a little interrupt-y.”

Michael Bush, SVP of global marketing and communications at Edelman, told us via email that the company “strongly disagree[s]” with characterizations of its work that “question our commitments to addressing climate change,” adding that it “only works with businesses that are aligned with the Paris Agreement and have published net-zero plans.” (Meisel called this “demonstrably, obviously untrue” in his LinkedIn post, noting that Shell, which has a net-zero pledge in place, recently said it would increase fossil-fuel production.)

“We have parted ways with several clients and regularly decline new business opportunities because of this principled approach,” Bush said.

Changing tides

Just as some companies have recently backpedaled on things like Pride in light of conservative boycotts and backlash, we asked Meisel if he’s concerned that something similar could happen with environmental commitments.

“I am,” he said. “We can actively see it in the companies that we focus on in the fossil-fuel industry,” citing both BP and Shell, which backed away from some of their climate commitments this year. On the agency front, however, he said he’s more optimistic and has not seen the same degree of walking things back.

Even if the conversations around climate felt a bit quieter at Cannes this year, Meisel said he noticed more main-stage presentations and “fringe events” focused on the issue. “I think people responded to [last year’s] disruption productively,” he said. “Is there more to do? Yes, there’s always more to do…But it seems like things are moving in the right direction.”

As for his goals for Cannes next year? “I hope, and in some ways predict, that by this time next year, there will be at least one holding company, if not more, committed not to work with fossil-fuel companies,” he said. “I think we are approaching the moment where this is going to be the norm, and if not the norm, then a real badge of leadership.”

If that happens, he said, “We can come back next year and do a little less disruption.”