At a panel to mark the latest edition of Clean Creatives F-List, which poke fun at polluting agencies with a set of tongue-in-cheek awards, chief transformation officer at sustainable development agency Futerra, Matthew Sexton said it can be tough for agency’s to make ethical choices about clients.
“It’s not turning down the oil and gas giants and the coal giants that’s the most difficult thing, it’s turning down the ones where you don’t know which way they’re going to go but can reason with yourself that they can be made sustainable,” he said.
“It’s an easy decision not to work with oil and gas giants, then there’s slam dunk who wouldn’t want to work with Lush Cosmetics but it’s where clients fall in the middle that you go, this isn’t an easy decision to make.”
Also speaking on the panel, which was held at Futerra’s London offices and hosted by Latte recruitment founder Dean Connelly were Milk and Honey PR managing director Kath Myers, Hope and Glory head of strategy Adam Mack.
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“There’s a hierarchy of needs right? I mean people justifiably go I need to put food on the table and keep my job as inflation’s rising,” added Mack, adding that as an agency they had to turn down clients including British Gas but that this had freed them up overall to take other work.
Asked about the role of the media Myers said the problem at hand is also that the media loves to talk about problems, and called for more optimistic solutions-based takes.
“What we do need is hope we need to hurt that launch through the wars, we need hope we need inspiration,” she said.
Agreeing, Sexton added: “We need informed optimism which actually says to people this can be done this can this gonna be we can be better than the lights number heavies who’s gonna be the default”.
Clean Creatives has received over 1,000 agency signatures on their pledge not to work with polluting clients.
The F-list awards winners, as chosen by Clean Creatives, this year include Ogilvy, McCann, Edelman and Dentsu.
Image credits: Clean Creatives
