Clean Creatives South Africa is a project for advertising and public relations professionals who want a safe climate future. Many people in South Africa have a limited understanding of climate change and the need to rapidly shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy in a just way. A 2021 Human Sciences Research Council survey shows that only 20% of the population understand that climate change is real and is driven primarily by human activity. This makes South Africa a fertile ground for climate change denial, disinformation and greenwashing — the practice where a company uses advertising to appear more climate friendly and environmentally sustainable than it is. Greenwashing by fossil fuel companies and their enablers is a major impediment to public understanding and climate policy, while the social licence of big polluters is maintained through sponsorships, PR and advertising. Clean Creatives is addressing this issue by shifting perceptions in the creative industry through its engagements with creatives and agencies, reports such as our F-list report listing agencies doing work for fossil fuel companies, speaking at educational institutions and organising industry events. More than 45 agencies and 150 individual creatives have taken the Clean Creatives pledge to decline to work with fossil fuel companies. Agencies that continue to work with these companies often defend the relationship by saying they are helping their clients navigate the transition by helping them communicate their commitments to clean energy. The reality is that in 2022, fossil fuel companies spent about 1% of their capital expenditure on renewables. The remainder went into fossil fuel exploration and extraction. Clean Creatives puts pressure on those in the advertising industry to cut ties with fossil fuel companies.
What’s been your/the organisation’s greatest achievement in your field?
More than 45 agencies and 150 individual creatives have taken the Clean Creatives pledge to decline to work with fossil fuel companies in South Africa.
At this critical juncture, Africa can make the decision to leapfrog a fossil fuel-heavy development pathway, as it did with landline phones, adopting cell phones directly instead, or else buy into the false narratives that fossil fuels are required for development. Advertising and communications professionals are critical to helping drive public understanding of this choice, that the clean energy technology solutions do already exist, and that we need our leaders to deliver a renewable energy future in Africa.
Please provide specific examples of how your organisation’s practices and work have a positive effect on the environment
There is currently a “dash for gas” under way across Africa. Multinational oil companies are supported in many cases by African governments to develop new fossil fuel infrastructure across the continent (with 48 of 55 African countries with some new or ongoing fossil fuel developments underway) and powerful vested interests use lobbying, PR and advertising to spread climate change disinformation to delay the energy transition (see “discourses of delay”).
Key milestones for Clean Creatives South Africa this year:
- 150 creatives, 45+ agencies sign the Clean Creatives pledge to cut ties with fossil fuel clients;
- Ran a live challenge in ad schools nationwide called Creative Cleanup 2023 in collaboration with global platform, Creatives For Climate. Judges included senior industry professionals;
- Hosted events in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg (supported by TEDxJohannesburg);
- 22+ leading civil society organisations endorse our campaign in an open letter for Human Rights Day;
- Clean Creatives SA releases a local F-list report, following the global edition, listing advertising agencies doing work for fossil fuel companies. Receives extensive media coverage in the Financial Mail, Business Day, Daily Maverick, News24, Cape Talk, GroundUp, Daily Dispatch, Beeld, Bizcommunity, IDIDTHAT.co and Marklives.com;
- Clean Creatives writes an op-ed in leading South African marketing industry newsletter, Marklives.com, urging The Loeries to take action on climate change, along with a Change.org petition.
Climate action and policy cannot get under way until we have sufficient public understanding and pressure on the issue. For this to happen, we need the power of advertising and PR to be part of the solution, rather than making things worse.
What are some of the biggest environmental challenges faced by South Africans today?
South Africa is among the world’s top contributors to climate change. Because of a heavy reliance on coal, the country is among the top 15 largest emitters globally, and has the world’s most carbon-intensive economy. The country is also particularly climate vulnerable, warming at twice the rate of the global average. We have seen what this warming means for vulnerable communities in the past years: devastating fires, floods and droughts.
Despite every major independent study showing that renewables offer the least cost pathway to secure South Africa’s energy future (and thereby eliminate load-shedding), fossil fuel companies use misleading advertising and PR strategies to delay a just transition from polluting fossil fuels towards clean wind, solar and energy storage solutions.
Our theme this year is Celebrating Environment Heroes. What do you believe could be the repercussions for millions of people in South Africa and the continent if we do not tackle problems exacerbated by climate change, encompassing issues like drought, floods, fires, extreme heat, biodiversity loss, and pollution of air and water?
Under increasing pressure in the Global North due to climate breakdown, the fossil fuel industry has set its sights on Africa as the new frontier for exploration and development. As we’ve seen with the Shell and the Niger Delta, among countless other examples ( TotalEnergies/Mozambique and the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline), communities do not benefit from resource extraction and those who resist, often pay with their lives.
While companies such as Sasol (one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases) miss their emissions reductions targets every year and shift the goalposts with little to no accountability, South Africans and African across the continent are already experiencing devastating climate impacts: thousands of lives lost to flooding in Libya, hundreds in Durban, South Africa; droughts and wildfires are increasingly commonplace and with a higher level of intensity. Our food security and health are also increasingly at risk, with numerous studies showing that air pollution in African cities and near power plants are causing thousands of premature deaths and serious illness.