So what's the problem?

Of Australia’s top greenhouse gas polluters, the biggest advertisers are AGL, Ampol, Energy Australia and Origin Energy.

AGL spends the most, dropping $98 million on marketing in FY 2020/21 and more on grants and political donations.

In the same year, Energy Australia spent $28.2m on traditional ads and Origin Energy spent $32.4m plus more on sponsorships and donations.

On digital platforms, Ampol was the biggest spender.

According to Pathmatics, it conservatively spent $2.5m on digital ads between April 2021 and April 2022 – as part of a $165m rebrand. Origin Energy came in second, spending $2.4m over the same period, followed by AGL with $1.6m.

Using Neilson, Pathmatics and other publicly available data, we estimate the top five spenders conservatively invested $238.3m on social licence and influence in the 2020/21 financial year.

Estimated spend on marketing activities 2020/21

Fossil fuel corporations rarely talk about their products. They prefer to trick you into thinking they are friendly, clean, innovative, sustainable, caring, quirky, cute, essential for daily life  and very, very patriotic. They do this through clever use of attractive images, nice colours and vague promises.

Greenwashing is defined as  “the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is.”

Research in the Journal of European Consumer and Market Law warns about the pernicious effects of fossil fuel companies’ “greenwash advertising” that misguides the public, and makes it harder to hold them accountable for their damaging activities

BP, for example, has been criticised for using ads to promote its renewable energy projects, which only make up 4% of its total investments, while 96% remains in oil and gas.

Numerous companies that have faced overseas courts or advertising regulators for greenwashing. In Australia, Santos is being sued for claiming gas is ‘clean’ in its annual report.  But Australia’s ad regulator, AANA, has only upheld one case on environmental grounds. In short, Australia is behind the rest of the world when it comes to stopping greenwashing.

There is a thing called the ‘halo effect’; when you have positive feelings about a company just because of who it is associated with. Fossil fuel companies are using this when they sponsor your favourite sports, cultural or community group.

Fossil fuel companies sponsor Australia’s national rugby union team, the national netball team, Surf Life Saving Australia and the Tour Down Tour Under. In addition they sponsor teams in AFL, NRL and football.

This helps polluting companies buy government influence and create the illusion that we need them to have a prosperous economy.