Corporations spend big promoting recycling, plastics reform
Plus, a look at Greenpeace’s new anti-crypto ad campaign
Welcome to Climate Monitor, your weekly digest of the digital tactics and strategies that polluters and climate-action groups are deploying online to shift public opinion and move legislation. We’ve examined political ad spending on platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Google by several dozen groups and corporations from the past week, as well as their activities on social media. Tell your colleagues to subscribe here!
TL;DR:
Greenpeace joined NRDC in running Facebook + Instagram ads highlighting the excessive energy demands of cryptocurrency, calling to “change the code, not the climate”
EDF Action Fund and Sierra Club are collaborating on a Facebook + Instagram ad campaign promoting Earth Day rallies in Atlanta, Phoenix, and Washington, DC.
The American Chemistry Council has more than doubled the size of its digital ad campaign calling for recycling reform, while SC Johnson dropped nearly $100k last week alone promoting pro-recycling sentiments through the Facebook page of its CEO.
An AJ+ video profile of a climate scientist who was recently arrested for civil disobedience went viral with nearly four million views across Facebook and Instagram.
National Digital Ad Spending on Climate
First, here are the top 25 spenders nationwide on climate and energy-related ads on Meta platforms from last week:
One major ad campaign we saw last week came from EDF Action and Sierra Club, which have both been running similar ads trying to recruit attendees for Earth Day rallies across the country. EDF Action has spent over $1k targeting people in the Atlanta, Phoenix, and DC areas, while Sierra Club has spent around $15k on Facebook ads mostly targeting users in the DC area.
Another noteworthy campaign came from Greenpeace, which launched a new wave of ads arguing that the climate consequences of cryptocurrency’s enormous energy demand can be “avoided by a change to the software code that reduces Bitcoin’s energy use by 99%.” So far, the group has spent nearly $18k on this campaign.
While fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil and BP haven’t been running digital ads for weeks now, we have found that the American Petroleum Institute spent another $49k on ads targeting older adults in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, and Missouri saying, “Now more than ever, American energy production is critical for strengthening national security and energy supply.”
Additionally, the plastics industry seems to be doubling down on pushing for recycling reform: the American Chemistry Council more than doubled its Facebook ad spending last week, investing nearly $95k in ads urging Congress to “fix our broken recycling system.” At the same time, household goods giant SC Johnson spent nearly $100k through their CEO’s Facebook page showcasing his concern for microplastics in the Strait of Magellan.
Overall, here’s a look at how weekly spending on Meta political ads by climate groups and polluters compares week-over-week so far this year:
Google + YouTube
We identified seven climate and energy groups that ran political ads on Google platforms last week, according to the Google Transparency Report. Here’s how their spending breaks down:
The League of Conservation Voters launched their biggest YouTube ad campaign of the year with ads supporting Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia by portraying him as a senator fighting for “American-made clean energy production” and to end “our dependence on hostile dictators and oil profiteers.” Relatedly, Climate Power is targeting the DC media market with a Google Search campaign boosting this NYT article fact-checking GOP/Big Oil talking points.
Finally, we found that ClearPath Action Fund is now running YouTube and banner ads supporting Rep. Jaime Herrera-Butler in addition to the ads they’re already running supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Dan Newhouse.
Snapchat
Last week, Patagonia launched a Snap ad campaign in partnership with Break Free From Plastic pushing for Congress to ban the sale and distribution of single-use plastics in our national parks. Overall, here are the top spenders on Snapchat ads related to climate change, clean energy, and conservation so far this year:
Climate & energy ads in the 2022 elections
Out of some of the most competitive races across the country, we picked up a few new and ongoing Facebook ad campaigns from top candidates:
CO-SEN: Following the GOP’s nomination of Ron Hanks, Michael Bennet lists Hanks’ climate skepticism as one of the reasons Colorado should reject him: “He claims climate change is a hoax and tried to outlaw both universal voting by mail and abortion in Colorado.”
GA-SEN: Outside group 34N22 is attacking Warnock because he “voted to kill the Keystone XL Pipeline—causing gas prices to skyrocket and America to lose its energy development. Now we know it was part of his radical, far-left agenda all along.”
OH-SEN: Republican Matt Dolan launched a new ad campaign parroting Big Oil talking points: “Matt Dolan will stop the Democrats’ war on energy and work to reclaim American energy independence so we can protect Ohio’s economy, restore our national security, and bring relief to consumers.”
OR-5: Jamie McLeod-Skinner has launched an ad campaign criticizing Rep. Kurt Schrader’s climate credentials: “Kurt Schrader joined Republicans, voting to rescind the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions, rejecting that climate change endangers human health.”
OR-6: Matt West has started an ad campaign outlining a straightforward platform: “I am running for Congress because billionaires and corporate special interest have blocked real action on climate change for too long. My solutions are simple: ✅ Tax the rich. ✅ Save the planet. ✅ Stop the billionaires.”
Reaching Frontline Communities
The Southern Environmental Law Center has so far spent $6.5k on Facebook and Instagram ads since March 18th targeting women in North Carolina calling for the NC Department of Environmental Quality to better regulate pollution from industrial hog operations in the state:
Tracking Climate Disinfo Online
Triplecheck identified approximately 250 tweets with more than 10 retweets and 65 Facebook posts with more than 10 engagements that contained misinformation or toxic narratives related to the environment from April 12, 2022, through April 18, 2022. More than two million people were exposed to this content on Twitter during the time period reviewed, a decrease from last week's exposure levels. The content had over 17,000 engagements on Facebook, a decrease from last week's exposure levels.
Approximately 55 percent of the people exposed to misinformation or toxic narratives related to the environment on Twitter were exposed to one of the following themes:
The Green Agenda is bankrupting America
570,000 human accounts exposed on Twitter
Over 370 engagements on Facebook.
Environmentalists are silent when China harms the environment
880,000 human accounts exposed on Twitter
Minimal Facebook engagement identified.
House candidate says climate emergency part of the reason for her abortion
Minimal Twitter engagement identified
Over 7,900 engagements on Facebook
These narratives were also the focus of approximately 55 percent of the Facebook engagements identified in our tracking. You can find the full report here.
Measuring the National Organic Conversation
On Facebook last week, the best-performing posts about climate change and related terms were largely focused on moves against Russian oil and the ascendancy of clean energy. We’ll also note that a video post from AJ+ profiling one of the climate scientists recently arrested for civil disobedience got 2.61M total views. Among posts from climate-skeptic pages, the most engaged posts made victims out of oil companies and valorized Elon Musk. Overall, here’s a breakdown of the most-engaged Facebook posts that mention climate change, energy, or conservation:
Over on Instagram, it doesn’t look like memes about high gas prices were quite as pervasive as in previous weeks. A couple of highly-performing posts stood out to us: DJT Jr. posted a meme of his dad riding a bald eagle pooping on Biden during remarks about lowering gas prices which got 177.3k interactions, and the above video from AJ+ video got 825k views on this platform. Additionally, a Greenpeace post comparing a viral British talk show interview to a similar scene from “Don’t Look Up” got just 51k interactions. Overall, here’s how interactions on the top posts mentioning climate change, energy, or conservation break down:
That’s it for Climate Monitor this week. As always, head to climatemonitor.substack.com to see these updates in real-time as we publish them throughout the week!
And if you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop us a line by shooting an email to nick@fwiwmedia.com.