Held in Baku between 11-22 November, the UN’s COP29 climate conference has faced a wave of scrutiny, with the participation of fossil fuel lobbyists adding to concerns raised at Dubai’s COP28 last year. With nearly 1,800 representatives, if the oil & gas industry was a country, they would have been the fourth-largest delegation at the summit.
The UK delegation has come under particular criticism–welcoming 20 fossil fuel lobbyists, the UK delegation has been denounced for undermining the country’s global climate leadership efforts. Moreover, British PR advisories like Teneo have elicited accusations of “greenwashing” the authoritarian, hydrocarbon-rich Azerbaijani government’s reputation ahead of the summit, while maintaining a significant portfolio of fossil fuel clients with every interest to weaken COP climate targets.
Teneo is certainly not alone in courting such controversy. A broad cohort of international PR firms have recently found themselves in the spotlight for similar climate-related conflicts of interest, underscoring their involvement in a wider series of scandals that compromise public integrity.
UK at core of greenwashing backlash
As Rosie Collington, co-author of ‘The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments and Warps Our Economies,’ has rightly cautioned “we should be concerned, certainly, about conflicts of interest” undermining global climate action – an assertion particularly applicable to the UK’s industry. In Teneo’s case, Azerbaijani COP29 contract lead Geoff Morrell’s status as BP’s former communications head has raised eyebrows, particularly considering his downplaying of the company’s disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill, as well as the fact that BP is Azerbaijan’s largest foreign investor. What’s more, several other Teneo senior executives have close industry ties, with senior advisor Andrew Liveris and Chairwoman Ursula Burns having sat on the boards of Saudi Aramco and ExxonMobil, respectively, while the firm’s history working for the likes of Chevron and petro-states including Saudi Arabia and the UAE notably helped it clinch the Azerbaijani project.
Media backlash surrounding foreign consultancies’ COP greenwashing attempts has equally put the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) in the hot seat, with the former PM’s close relationship with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and history of promoting of fossil fuel projects in the region adding to criticism of TBI’s COP28 work on behalf of the UAE government.
A global problem
While the UK has found itself in an unenviably central position in this unfolding conflict-of-interest saga, the similarly-dubious practices of the global PR industry are now coming to light. In November, InfluenceMap published a new report exposing the troubling climate conflicts of interest at the world’s leading ‘Big Six’ PR firms, with France’s Havas and Publicis and Japan’s Dentsu joining British consultancy WPP in the spotlight.
Havas, for example, represents European energy clients with starkly opposing goals—some champion a 90% emissions reduction target for 2040, while others lobby to weaken it. Meanwhile, Dentsu, despite publicly acknowledging the risks of working with emissions-heavy clients, lacks any tangible policy to address such conflicts, with its clients unaligned with Paris Agreement climate goals outnumbering ‘aligned’ clients. Like Dentsu, Publicis has recognised InfluenceMap’s report yet failed to provide a meaningful response, underscoring both firms’ lack of accountability.
Beyond simple advertising, these consultancies are irresponsibly shaping public opinion to sanitise the image of industries lobbying against climate progress. Consequently, InfluenceMap’s findings call for agencies to integrate climate due diligence into their operations, addressing the “serviced emissions” they enable. Without decisive action to reconcile these conflicts, firms like Dentsu, Havas and Publicis will remain complicit in obstructing the urgent sustainable shift.
Eroding vital public institutions
Reflecting on the COP29 debacle, Collington has rightly cast doubt on consultancies’ suitability to help “drive governments and businesses to meet the objectives of the green transition.” The same can be said for governments’ broader efforts to improve governance standards and public service delivery. Beyond its climate hypocrisy, Dentsu is no stranger to such situations
In its native Japan, for example, Dentsu faces charges of violating Japan’s anti-monopoly laws in relation to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Meanwhile, in Europe, Swiss subsidiary Dentsu Tracking has been accused by MEPs and NGOs of tender manipulation and conflict-of-interest involving the dubious hiring of a former Commission official, Jan Hoffman, shortly after winning the bloc’s anti-smuggling tobacco track and trace scheme in a markedly opaque process. More recently, the company has found itself in a fresh conflict-of-interest saga, with multiple major Brazilian national media outlets leaking a conversation between Dentsu Tracking CEO Philippe Castella, consultant Paulo Zottolo and high-ranking Brazilian tax authority officials in early November.
The recording shows apparent collusion concerning a public tender for a national beverage marking scheme, with Dentsu representatives leveraging their government connections in an attempt to “mould” strategic public officials and gain control of this initiative designed to tackle the illicit market and boost much-need tax revenue. Interestingly, Castella’s discussion with the Brazilian officials suggest that Dentsu’s endgame in the South American giant is clinching the lucrative tobacco track and trace contract, asserting that “PMI will be 300% behind” such a takeover, suggesting the tobacco leader’s backing.
Tobacco conflicts-of-interests compromising public health
Dentsu’s unfolding Brazilian controversy certainly chimes with its lobbying practices in the EU and UK, where the firm’s track and trace system has been dismissed as ‘completely useless’ by local illicit trade officials – an assertion implicitly supported by the tobacco industry’s own data since its implementation. Indeed, in November, Big Tobacco giant Imperial Brands reported a 12% annual profit rise despite “an overall market decline” in the UK due in part to the rising illicit tobacco trade.
Yet Dentsu is not alone in undermining anti-illicit trade efforts. The role of Ruth Dempsey – who, like Castella, is a former Philip Morris International (PMI) executive – on a UK government expert advisory committee on cancer risks has come under recent scrutiny, with critics arguing this undermines the UK’s WHO FCTC commitments to shield public health policies from tobacco industry interference. Since starting her advisory position in 2020, Dempsey has continued receiving payments from PMI, raising serious concerns about conflicts of interest and the industry’s potential regulatory influence.
Whether impacting the smoke-free or climate action agendas, conflicts of interest actively facilitated by consultancies and industry lobbyists must serve as a wake-up call for good governance amid a global crisis of public trust. Indeed, the entanglement of PR firms in both greenwashing authoritarian regimes and broader government influence scandals highlights a systemic issue: the erosion of institutional integrity. To rebuild confidence, governments must enforce stricter regulations on conflicts of interest and demand full transparency from industry actors – or else risk further decay with wide-ranging consequences for sustainable development and democracy.
