Climate campaigners turned out on Wednesday in London to occupy the lobby of UK-based communications giant WPP, demanding that the company stop working for the fossil fuel industry.
As demonstrators inside staged a “die-in” — wrapping themselves in shrouds emblazoned with logos of Shell, BP, and other WPP clients — a grim reaper figure in front of the building climbed atop a mock-up of an oil rig and set off a plume of black–coloured smoke.
Protesters also unfurled a 15-metre banner in front of the building which declared “WPP are climate criminals, ban fossil fuel advertising”.
With WPP CEO Mark Read set to leave at the end of 2025, the activists say there’s an opportunity for the company to change direction.
“Working with Big Oil to increase emissions in a climate and ecological emergency is clearly immoral, yet WPP chooses to be complicit in causing existential harm to people and planet,” said Freya Chambers, a campaigner with Cut the Ties to Fossil Fuels, a campaign started by Extinction Rebellion, and that organised the protest.
WPP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The demonstration comes less than two weeks ahead of a July 7 parliamentary debate on banning fossil fuel advertising in the UK.
The debate has been triggered by a petition calling for a nationwide ban on fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship, led by TV presenter Chris Packham, that garnered over 110,000 signatures
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called for a global ban on fossil fuel advertising and urged ad and PR agencies to “stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction”.
WPP is the world’s largest advertising holding company by revenue, earning £14.7 billion (about $20.3 billion) in 2024, according to its annual report. While the company’s internal sustainability policy states it works to “maximise its positive impact on the planet and only to act in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement”, WPP currently holds at least 79 contracts with fossil fuel companies, according to research by campaign group Clean Creatives — more than any of its major competitors.
WPP’s client roster includes major oil companies like Saudi Aramco, Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies, according to DeSmog research. In 2023, the UK advertising watchdog banned three adverts for Shell created by Wunderman Thompson, a WPP-owned agency, for making “misleading green claims”.
A DeSmog investigation in February revealed that a South African agency part-owned by WPP, MetropolitanRepublic, used a network of social media influencers to post hundreds of messages in support of promote TotalEnergies’ controversial East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline — even as anti-pipeline protesters were being harassed, beaten, and arrested by Ugandan police.
The climate groups Adfree Cities and the New Weather Institute have filed a formal complaint against WPP to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) alleging that WPP has violated international climate and human rights guidelines in its work for major polluters.
Wednesday’s demonstration was the latest in a series of protests against major advertising agencies over the past five years in the UK.
In 2023 and 2024, Extinction Rebellion staged protests at the London offices of Havas in response to the French advertising company striking a major deal with Shell. In 2021, the anonymous artists collective Brandalism targeted multiple London advertising agencies, including WPP subsidiaries MediaCom and Ogilvy, with over 100 satirical billboards across 20 UK cities linking the agencies to their most polluting clients.
Spain became the first country in the world this month to ban petrol advertising. In 2024, The Hague in the Netherlands became the first city in the world to do the same.
In the UK, Edinburgh City Council banned advertising for high-carbon products in May 2024, following Sheffield City Council which implemented a similar policy in March 2024. Norwich and Liverpool have also passed motions to restrict fossil fuel advertising.
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