The world’s largest public relations firm will reportedly no longer have its lucrative relationship with the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s main lobbying group.
The Holmes Report, a PR trade industry publication, reported that Edelman public relations is splitting with its subsidiary, Blue Advertising, which has done work for API and will continue to do so.
API paid Edelman $327.4 million from 2008 through 2012, according to the Center for Public Integrity, although “it’s not clear how much of the total went into the bank accounts of the PR and advertising firms and how much was passed on to media companies.”
An Edelman spokesman had no comment on the split.
API said its “relationship with Blue (Advertising) hasn’t changed,” and that the change is in Edelman’s structure.
The environmental group Greenpeace is claiming that Edelman spun off Blue Advertising under pressure, though, so “it could show a commitment to not aiding the denial of climate change science.”
API’s website does not deny climate change but is equivocal about the link made by the scientific community between global warming and burning of oil and gas.
“While we rely on them for most of our energy and will likely do so for years to come, emissions from their production and use may be helping to warm our planet by enhancing the natural greenhouse effect of the atmosphere. That’s why oil and gas companies are also working to reduce their greenhouse emissions,” it reads.
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