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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
TJ Jordan

Revealed: British ad firm’s billion-dollar greenwash of US oil industry

Police look on during a protest involving banners and a blue flare
An Extinction Rebellion demonstration at the offices of WPP in London in June 2025. Photograph: Eleventh Hour Photography/Alamy

A British advertising conglomerate has helped the oil companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP spend an estimated $1bn (£740m) on adverts in the US since the 2015 Paris agreement to tackle the climate crisis, a report shows.

London-based WPP was the leading advertising group serving the US’s oil industry over the past decade, according to analysis by the climate investigations platform DeSmog. The figure is nearly twice the respective amounts linked to its US rivals Omnicom and Interpublic Group (IPG), which merged in November.

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