Dive Brief:
- PR firm Edelman is dropping two groups of clients it considers high risk – coal producers and climate change skeptics.
- The reasoning behind the move was the belief these high risk clients threaten Edelman’s legitimacy and could impact its bottom line as well.
- Edelman lost clients and executives over some climate-related clients it represented, and also became something of an outlier after other major PR firms took a stance against climate deniers last year.
Dive Insight:
Edelman, the largest PR firm in the world, is joining its peers in no longer representing climate change denier “greenwashing” groups, and is also no longer working with coal producers. The Guardian obtained an internal memo that outlined the new policy and was confirmed by Edelman executives. The firm determined that representing coal producers and climate change skeptics was a high risk threat to its business.
Michael Stewart, the president and chief executive for Europe, told the Guardian, “On climate denial and coal those are where we just said this is absolutely a no-go area.”
He added, “When you are trying in some way to obfuscate the truth or use misinformation and half-truths that is what we would consider getting into the work of greenwashing, and that is something we would never propose or work we would support our client doing.”
Edelman is actually late to the party in cutting climate change deniers from its client roster. Last year other major PR firms took a strong stand against those groups, and Edelman already had lost clients and executives due to its continued representation of climate deniers.