Agency Client Conflicts Are Becoming Procurement Data
Clean Creatives' searchable 2026 F-List documents 1,321 fossil fuel contracts across 802 agencies. The database gives CMOs a new reason to verify agency client conflicts, regional affiliates and disclosure rules before a pitch becomes a reputational problem.
Clean Creatives on September 17 released its 2026 F-List as an interactive database, documenting 1,321 advertising and PR contracts with fossil fuel companies across 802 agencies and 73 countries. The campaign group says the total is the highest in the report's six-year history and includes 733 relationships that had not previously appeared in news coverage.
The database matters beyond the argument over whether agencies should accept fossil fuel work. It makes alleged client conflicts searchable by agency, holding company, fossil fuel company, region and contract history. For CMOs, agency reputation is becoming easier for employees, investors and customers to investigate before procurement teams have asked the question.
What The F-List Added
The F-List is based on public records including government filings, lobbying databases, award entries, creative portfolios, LinkedIn advertising and social posts. Clean Creatives says its methodology is not exhaustive, and contracts with evidence of termination remain included if they were active during 2025 or 2026. Those limits matter: the database is a campaigning resource, not an independent audit of current agency rosters.
Even so, the evidence is now structured for comparison. Omnicom has 118 contracts in the database, followed by WPP with 88, Publicis with 34, Dentsu with 24 and Havas with 22. Holding companies account for 303 contracts, while independent agencies account for 1,018, or 77% of the total. This is not only a holding-company issue.
Clean Creatives executive director Laura Ranzato said agencies "face a real choice." Research head Nayantara Dutta said they were "nowhere close to giving up" fossil contracts.
The consequences can move beyond criticism. Clean Creatives notes that four Havas agencies lost B Corp certification after Havas won Shell's global media account in 2024. A searchable record can therefore affect credentials, talent and pitch eligibility even when a client relationship is commercially valuable.
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Why The Database Changes Procurement
Agency reviews typically test capability, cost, conflicts within a product category and access to talent. Climate-related client exposure often sits in a separate sustainability questionnaire, if it appears at all. The F-List gives procurement teams a source to challenge broad policy statements against documented relationships.
That does not mean brands should treat every listing as a verdict. It means CMOs should ask for the agency's response, the dates and scope of the work, the office responsible, and whether the relationship could create a reputational or regulatory conflict. Agencies should also have a route to correct outdated evidence.
The power shift is toward buyers that define disclosure before a pitch. Without that rule, a regional brand may discover after appointment that a network office, affiliate or subcontractor works for a client that conflicts with its public commitments.
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Why APAC Reviews Need Local Checks
The report gives APAC leaders reasons to look below a global holding-company assurance. Dentsu has 24 listed contracts, while Australian public affairs firm GRACosway has 10. Petronas is among nine major oil companies that together account for 325 contracts in the research.
Clean Creatives also says fossil fuel communications in Asia and Africa frequently use brand loyalty, family values and corporate social responsibility. That makes the issue relevant to communications leaders as well as media buyers: the risk can sit in sponsorship, public affairs, events or corporate reputation work, not only consumer advertising.
Regional procurement should therefore request market-level client disclosure and include affiliates, production partners and public affairs units. A global answer may miss the local team doing the work.
What CMOs Should Put In The Brief
The immediate decision is whether agency climate conflicts are material to the brand. If they are, CMOs should translate that position into a written screening rule rather than relying on an agency purpose statement.
Pitch documents can require current and recent client disclosure, identify prohibited or reviewable categories, set a correction process, and specify notification if a conflicting account is won later. Contracts can add audit rights and a remedy for material non-disclosure.
Clean Creatives is an advocacy group, and its classifications should be tested rather than adopted automatically. But the searchable format changes the practical standard. When external records can expose agency relationships in minutes, procurement teams need a documented view of which conflicts they accept, which they investigate and which they will not fund.
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