‘Didn’t bp say no more advertising?’

Geoff Morrell, executive vice president of communications and advocacy, answers the question...

When Bernard Looney announced our net zero ambition in February, one of the aims was to stop investing in corporate reputation advertising. And that’s what we did  ̶  immediately pulling down our Possibilities Everywhere ad campaign throughout the world.

But Bernard didn’t say we would stop all advertising. In fact, to help the world reach net zero we said we would actively advocate for progressive climate policies, including through advertising.

What’s more, we’re redirecting millions of dollars that had been spent on reputation advertising to instead encourage policies that will help lower emissions and – importantly  ̶  make change happen. 

So, we’re actively advocating right now in regions and states across the US for smart carbon pricing. 

Whether cap-and-invest or cap-and-trade, well-designed carbon pricing incentivizes better, lower carbon consumer choices and more investment in lower carbon energy. The most public-facing advocacy we’ve done so far is in support of two regional plans – the Transportation and Climate Initiative and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. 

In addition to our own direct and paid advocacy efforts, we helped to form a coalition of businesses that share our point of view. This coalition is also applying pressure in key states. And, we’re going to keep pushing to expand the scope of these coalitions – to show lawmakers that well-designed climate policy has broad support across industries, academia, NGOs and more.

 
It’s exciting to see these efforts begin to roll out – but we know we have a long way to go. Trust is earned on actions, not words. So, you can expect to see us putting more and more energy into this kind of work until bp, and the world, get to net zero.