On 27 September, we will join Clean Creatives, PRovoke, PRCA, and M&C Saatchi Indonesia, for an online webinar exploring PR’s role when it comes to fossil fuel brands and climate change.
Clean Creatives, a collective of PR and advertising industry professionals committed to honest communications about climate change, announced today a campaign to gain more support from PR and advertising professionals in Asia Pacific.
The campaign goal is for 500 agencies and or professionals in Asia to take the Clean Creative Pledge. The pledge is a promise taken by PR and advertising agencies and professionals to take no new contracts from companies in the fossil fuel industry.
Clean Creatives, a non-profit organization, was launched in 2019 by Duncan Meisel.
Vero is an award-winning PR and digital consultancy with more than 200 PR, digital, social media, and influencer marketing campaign consultants working in Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Vero is the first consultancy in Southeast Asia to take the Clean Creative Pledge and forswear working with fossil fuel brands.
To encourage more agencies to take the pledge, Clean Creatives is organizing outreach through PRCA, the PR industry’s largest trade organization.
At 10 a.m. SGT, September 27, PRCA is hosting a panel discussion entitled, “Should PR cancel or counsel?” to address the intersection of PR campaigns and fossil fuel brands.
The panel discussion is designed to initiate a conversation about serving fossil fuel brands and, ultimately, share ideas about how the PR industry can lead the change to inspire cleaner energy industries. Access to the panel discussion is free of charge – and may be accessed online.
This includes efforts to raise awareness among agency professionals, academics, students, and client decision makers that are committed to meeting sustainability goals. Meisel aims to reach at least 1,000 PR industry professionals in Asia Pacific by the end of 2022 through meetings, a media campaign, direct marketing and speaking to classrooms focused on the communications industry in Southeast Asia.
“Many brands are setting ambitious goals to reduce their carbon footprint, yet many of their PR consultants continue to work with fossil fuels brands – our goal is to make business decision makers aware of this conflict and to get more agencies in Asia, and around the world to take the pledge,” said Meisel. “In an ideal scenario, brands focused on sustainability goals would step in and demand that agencies end relationships with fossil fuel companies.”
After a thorough analysis of its client roster, Vero signed the Clean Creative Pledge in January, 2022 – and views this as the first step in the consultancy’s efforts to improve sustainability.
“There is much more we can do at Vero to improve the impact our consultancy makes upon the environment, and we will review policies related to our offices to see where we can reduce our carbon footprint and make a positive contribution to sustainability,” said Raphael Lachkar, Chief Operations Officer, Vero. “However, signing the Clean Creative Pledge was an important first step for us in being very deliberate in saying that we will not use our skills and capabilities in helping to create campaigns for an industry that we believe is putting the future at risk.”
Joining the PRCA panel “Should PR Cancel or Counsel?” are the following industry professionals:
- Arun Sudhaman, Editor-in-Chief, PRovoke Media
- Duncan Meisel, Executive Director, Clean Creatives
- Anish Daryani, Founder & President, M&C Saatchi
- Sasha Alwani, VP, Growth, Vero
- Raphael Lachkar, COO, Vero
- Vu Quan Masse-Nguyen, VP, Culture & Brand, Vero