Essay by Eric Worrall
“… sustainability staff have either been made redundant or left and not been replaced …”
Advertising giants change tune on climate as industry grapples with AI
Marketing and PR groups are latest to follow shifts in politics led by US
Kenza Bryan in London
The world’s largest advertising agencies have rolled back their rhetoric on climate change, as the industry grapples with being replaced by AI and the need to hold on to lucrative contracts with even the most polluting clients.
It is the latest sector to follow the banks and asset managers and an array of US companies in re-embracing fossil fuel clients, echoing the political shift following the election of President Donald Trump.
…
Energy majors and their creative partners are more transparently embracing fossil fuels, in a “bad boyfriend strategy”, said Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives. “Marketing spend is shifting towards making them seem inevitable and vital.”
…
One Omnicom staff member said an internal working group on sustainability had recently fallen silent. “Advertising is struggling — so all business is being considered,” he said.
…Omnicom is in the process of acquiring IPG. A current IPG employee said some “sustainability staff have either been made redundant or left and not been replaced”.
Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/df2057e0-9c55-47d5-a0d3-4c68ac122dce
…
Low energy visions of sustainability are finished.
Not only has the election of President Trump broken the myth of green historical inevitability, the AI revolution is driving an enormous uptick in fossil fuel investment.
IEA modelling suggests data center demand for electricity will double to 945 TWh by 2030, around twice the current energy consumption of Japan.
In a world where a sizeable chunk of the hundreds of billions of dollars currently being poured into AI data center construction is ending up in the pockets of fossil fuel companies, the need for those same fossil fuel companies to double down on boosting their publish image is a market opportunity no advertising firm can afford to ignore.
Update (EW): Added the quote about sustainability jobs not being replaced.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Energy consuming data centers seems to be the next big money making thing. Something has to give.
What will give is renewables, but what will win is nuclear power. Back in te day one nuclear power station in Wales (Wylfa) existed mostly to satisfy the needs of an aluminium smelting plant.
Small modular reactors are a perfect match for companies wanting to run large data centres.
What Leo says sounds correct, but I’ve heard rhyming stories at least 3 times since 1990. Does the most logical action eventually happen? I’m not sure. The “Stop Nuclear” idea seemed to quietly overrule the “Save Earth from Climate Change” idea among activists who were born after Chernobyl – they don’t know what exactly happened, or why, or what country Chernobyl is/was in, but they’re certain they must stop it from ever happening again.
Soooo…. Sustainability is just not sustainable.
Sustainably so…
What I can’t figure out is what the sustainabilty people do after they have got multiple garbage cans installed in all areas of their buildings.
I hope my laughter offests all the graduate level college educated professional corporate sustainability officers you just offended. Maybe we’ve reentered an era where people can say and write what they really think.
It would appear not.
Focusing on just one metal required for the wind and solar “energy transition” – copper.
If Net Zero by 2050 is to be achieved globally, between now and then, 6 BILLION tonnes of copper will need to be produced by the global copper mining industry.
This to manufacture the equipment – solar panels, wind turbines, batteries for EVs, batteries for 28 days of electrical storage for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, and to increase grid sizes by 3-fold.
But there are one or two problems facing this . . . ridiculous concept, as follows:
Current global copper production is in the order of 25 million tonnes. So, to produce 6 BILLION tonnes of copper at current rates of production would take . . . 240 years.
But if it were actually possible to produce 6 BILLION tonnes of copper by 2050, which would mean current rates of production would have to be increased overnight by tomorrow morning from 25 million tonnes to 240 million tonnes, then, with current global copper Reserves standing at 880 million tonnes . . . these Reserves would be depleted in . . . less than 4 years.
And then you can hear the response of a stupid idiot politician – somebody like Miliband – which would be: “Just build more mines.”
Which highlights the next problem:
From Resource (mineralised deposit) discovery, which takes years of painstaking geological exploration work in itself, to the establishment of a producing operating mine is, AT BEST, a 15 year exercise.
And this means the straightforward observations of reality I provide above exposes the . . . ridiculous and laughable stupidity of the likes of Miliband.
And then we have to bear in mind, Mr Miliband, that not one tonne of the materials required to build solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, or extend the size of the grid by 3-fold, is produced in the UK – NOT ONE TONNE.
So much for energy independence and energy security . . . the complete and utter pillock.
Well, I guess their positions were simply unsustainable.
” ….. contracts with even the most polluting clients.”
What pollution?
Not CO2 surely ….. .
No matter how many Yahoo’s tell you “The sky is green”
No matter how many Politicians pass edicts “The sky is green”
No matter how many nations proclaim “The sky is green”
No matter how many protesters demand “The sky is green”
Just Look Up and you will see the Sky is Blue and has occasional white puffy spots.
You see blue skies, when I see green
If you don’t use it
You won’t know what I mean.
A friend had lens replacement surgery. Everything now has a blue tint. Said to be typical and will soon fade.
Yep.
All true.
Experiencing it as we speak.
My mild cataracts are certainly giving everything a sepia tint
I noticed that. Had one eye done first- then the other in a month. So for that month what I saw from each eye was different- that is the colors were different. The fixed eye- green foliage on trees was noticeable bluer. Reds were different too- the fixed eye saw brighter reds. I know an artist who was happy to get the surgery as she wanted to see colors correctly for her painting. My eye surgeon said the cataract is like adding a yellow filter to a camera lens. For anyone needed cataract surgery, don’t wait. It seems scary but it isn’t.
In central Scotland the sky is grey more often than not.
That’s not the sky. That’s the roof put there to hide Scotland from sight. 😉
No more whisky for you, then, you’l have to make do with whiskey.
The sun is yellow, the sky is blue therefore the average is green. As with all things climate (solar output, albedo, cloud cover, temperature of an entire planet for a year etc) you have to average it, otherwise reality might tell a different story.
Niiiice!
Low energy visions of…
The UK are just beginning. Miliband could not be sacked. Take a moment to think about that. Have you ever known anyone who refused to be sacked and got away with it? In any walk of life? Me neither, but this is no ordinary government; it’s a sack of ferrets.
Miliband Allies Blamed for No10 Implosion and Trying to “Destabilise” Starmer
The tradition [in the Parliamentary dictatorship] is to oust a leader and replace them – by default. Until the next election… The real bind for the Labour party is it has nobody at all that can do the job.
Already, the King of the North is eyeing up his chances…
“Labour’s National Executive Committee is deadly serious in its efforts to block Andy Burnham’s premature journey back down to Westminster. Guido reported yesterday on the possibility of the NEC forcing an open selection for any by-election seat Burnham might have his eye on, with Andrew Gwynne’s Gorton and Denton said to have his attention. Starmerite contingency planners are hoping it does not get to that stage… – Guido Fawkes
Phew…
Andy Burnham is blocked (for now): Ex-minister says he won’t step aside to let Manchester mayor back into Parliament so he can challenge Starmer
…Gwynne, MP for Gorton & Denton, was previously believed to have been considering retiring from his position due to medical reasons – Daily Mail
A real sack of ferrets – Burnham, or should I say Miliband and Burnham, are but two.
Correction
Two Labour MPs who were put on “resignation watch” in an attempt to give Andy Burnham a path back to the House of Commons have ruled out stepping down ahead of the next General Election.
Gorton & Denton MP Andrew Gwynne and Blackley & Middleton South MP Graham Stringer both committed to representing their Manchester constituents in Westminster. – GB News
Both have health issues.
Why would they step aside? Based on current polls they have very little chance of getting elected again.
Just give the polls the new name…
Political Climate Models
Then everyone will believe them to be true.
Trust the Models.
Ferrets are great animals who give great service to rural inhabitants.
Not sure how that applies to Mad Ed.
Google ‘reverse ferret’
Ferrets fighting in a sack
No 10 smear merchant Damian McBride was aboard the Balls-for-Leader Express. Tarring Balls with this brush could be fatal, of course. But, while the nation’s in a real crisis, the Blair/Brown camps are fighting again like ferrets in a sack for domination.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1171989/PETER-MCKAY-Ferrets-fighting-sack.html
People are seeing the Globalist/Socialist/Marxist movements for what they are and what they cause and the MSM can no longer put lipstick on that pig.
“IEA modelling …”. So, some modeling is good?
Only when it gives the “desired results”…
Desired results indeed. The idiocy of Fatih Birol and the IEA continues unchecked.
“ though renewables and natural gas are set to take the lead due to their cost-competitiveness and availability in key markets.”
Story Tip or just simple off topic (-:
I see Google has their logo dressed up today to tell us about photosynthesis:
LISTER: Everything on the smegging ship’s electric, man. Heat, light, doors. I never realised how dependent we were. I never realised how little I know. I just plugged things in walls and pressed the “on” button. I don’t even know how to make oxygen. All I know is it’s got. something to do with plants and ends in “osis.” Or is it “esis?” I — I don’t know! Why is it I never paid attention in Biology class? Why did I always turn to page forty-seven and start drawing little beards and moustaches on the sperms? – Red Dwarf, Season 4: “White Hole”
Lets hope Google knows how to make Oxygen!
Thanks. I hadn’t seen that, ’cause I use DuckDuckGo.
Echoing Galileo Galilei: It moves!
My old brain has no idea what “bad boyfriend strategy” means. Is this different than a bad girl friend? I had one of those once.
How does the Climate Industrial Complex cookie crumble?
One crumb at a time.
The people being sacked were employed by commercial organisations, most of them presumably controlled by boards of directors.
Such boards will have made the decision to pursue these nonsensical processes. They should be sacked for their incompetence.
“left and not been replaced”
Not many retirees in a profession that did not exist when I started working. Same number of rear ends must be in rearranged chairs.
Some of those hired were undoubtedly already senior level.
Others may have left for other jobs, especially if they were smart enough to notice the changing tides after Trump won.
They have the sustainability issue all topsy-turvy anyway…
Wind and solar are a totally unsustainable forms of erratic energy that TAKE from society
Coal and gas release CO2 which sustains the planet’s life.
Grid scale wind and solar are on the way to be stranded assets in Australia. I doubt any will ever be replaced. For the time being, their demand is being taken away by rooftop solar – the only generating segment new able to grow unconstrained.
Rooftops will continue to get financed until the wholesale markets shift to prioritising dispatchable generation.
South Australia is already showing the end game. Even on a not so sunny day, rooftops displaced both grid solar and grid wind from the market:
https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=1d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time&group=Detailed
Grid prices in SA are astronomic but most households are no longer exposed to those high costs because the owners of roofs have loaded them with solar panels.
There has been no reduction in the need for dispatchable capacity but its volume is way down so unit prices are way up. Grid scale wind and solar are fighting over the demand left over after rooftops take away most of it through the day. Grid scale solar in SA is now dead as an investment:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/07/14/solar-farms-in-southern-australia-face-major-curtailments-by-2027/
As long as your rooftop solar can provide your energy when it’s needed you are fine. The issue lies w relying on money from putting it back on the grid that is part of initial payback/ loan system and projected evening out within a time frame. The grid operators are obviously not keen on paying people an x amount for an x amount of returned electricity. Many countries have seen grid companies simply halt that return when the contract has finished.Sometimes governments come in w subsidies.
That is why the greenies would like the state to control all aspects of electricity ( outside solar/ wind industrial sites). Trouble is: most western countries have sold their once domestic system. These days they do not have the funds to get them back under control.