South Africa’s creative industry: A ‘change agent’ for a climate safe future?

Source: © 123rf 123rf Claire Watt, senior account director, The Friday Street Club explains that strategic communication is a powerful way to achieve a climate safe future

People working in advertising and PR perhaps entered the industry wanting to express their creativity, and some, to simply to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, however, creative power has the potential to cause irreversible damage.

In March 2023, scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change specifically called out the creative industry for hampering efforts to prevent a full-blown climate catastrophe.

Closer to home, on Human Rights Day last year, a coalition of 23 organisations called on South African PR and advertising agencies to decline future work from fossil fuel companies.

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Agencies working with fossil fuel companies

The fossil fuel industry invests heavily in advertising and PR campaigns, both in South Africa and across the globe.

The result is that, through the mightiness of communication, these companies are misleading the public on climate claims, distracting attention from their harms and delaying measures to move away from fossil fuels.

By working with fossil fuel companies, advertising and PR agencies are in essence promoting this false, and often damaging, messaging.

To take meaningful action, I strongly believe that agencies must start reconsidering their relationships with major polluters.

Deciding to decline contracts with fossil fuel companies is the most effective way for agencies to show that they are committed to a future for the creative industry that doesn’t include promoting climate-breaking carbon pollution.

When considering to take this stance, there are of course financial implications, and there is also the “prestige factor” of working on such accounts.

However, I believe that storytelling can shift behaviour, create collective vision, and push the focus to be more on working with clients whose values you share.

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Strategic communication

Strategic communication is a powerful way to help achieve this. As a PR specialist, I am responsible for the messaging that I create to support brands and companies.

After embarking on my journey with the team at the Friday Street Club almost four years ago, I was introduced to the concept of ‘clean creativity’.

Managing director, Emma King, is as passionate about the preservation of the environment as I am, and she decided for The Friday Street Club to sign a pledge to decline any work that is associated with the fossil fuel industry. This sat well with me. I was representing an agency that had strong values.

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Clean Creatives SA

This pledge is the work of Clean Creatives SA, inspired by Clean Creatives in the US. Its aim is to bring together leading SA media agencies, their employees, and industry clients, to address the creative industry’s work with fossil fuels that are the principal cause of climate breakdown. It is a project for advertising and public relations professionals who strive towards creating a safe climate future.

Globally, the Clean Creatives pledge counts more than 1,000 advertising and PR agencies and which have signed to decline future work with the fossil fuel industry. In South Africa there are over 260 signatories, including 57 agencies.

I fully encourage the creative industry to show up more, and be a force for good. Together, we can make a positive impact, and support organisations that are genuinely working to effect lasting and meaningful change.

As Nelson Mandela said, “I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses. We must never forget that it is our duty to protect this environment.”

If you are curious to find out more, watch the film by Purpose Disruptors, The Good Life 2030. It will inspire and challenge you to think about how the advertising industry can be reimagined in light of the climate and ecological crises.