Stanford disappoints critics of fossil fuel donations by hiring PR firm with big oil ties | US universities

Stanford University’s sustainability school has hired a public relations firm to address “potential reputational challenges” amid concern from campus activists over the institution’s extensive ties with fossil fuel companies.

However, that PR firm, the Brunswick Group, has itself faced criticism for working with oil and gas companies, disappointing the university’s climate advocates. Brunswick says it is “vital to engage with companies in the most complex sectors to decarbonize”.

“I was like, God, really?” Amanda Campos, a Stanford sophomore and member of the Doerr School of Sustainability’s student advisory council, said after learning of the partnership.

The sustainability school, which was founded in 2022, and its precursor departments has accepted funding from Exxon, Chevron, Shell and other oil majors, sparking anger from climate organizers on and off campus. It is not alone: fossil fuel companies have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into university research across the US.

Late last month, school officials sent an email to student leadership announcing its partnership with Brunswick, a major public relations firm based in London which operates in 14 countries. The university described the partnership as part of an effort to show the school’s brand, tackle “potential reputational challenges” and develop a PR strategy that “leverages Stanford’s reputation, and addresses key stakeholder concerns”. Student council members were invited to a catered lunch meeting to help inform the strategy.

Brunswick has worked with the energy giant BP, creating a strategy in 2017 and 2018 to help “reframe the conversation on gas”, “protect BP’s ‘advantaged gas position’” and “secure support for gas as a natural low carbon fuel”, according to documents released in 2022 to a US congressional investigation. (The campaign was meant to “draw attention to the urgency of tackling methane emissions in 2017, as a prerequisite for natural gas playing a role in the energy transition”, a Brunswick spokesperson told OpenDemocracy in 2022.)

As recently as 2022, Brunswick also counted Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, as a client.

“I was mad and disappointed,” said Campos, who studies public policy and earth systems and is a member of the Coalition for a True School of Sustainability, which is pushing for the Doerr school to halt fossil fuel funding.

Asked about its new contract with Stanford and activist concerns, a Brunswick spokesperson told the Guardian: “Climate change is one of the defining issues facing business today,” adding that its advice to clients “is informed by science-based pathways, including the actions required to contribute positively to the energy transition and to build credibility and trust on climate”

At the student council lunch meeting with Brunswick the following week, Campos raised her concerns.

A school representative asked her to “chat offline” but she said they had not yet approached her; many students, meanwhile, have praised her for speaking out, she said.

A Doerr school spokesperson said the institution “engaged Brunswick to collect perspectives from a wide range of stakeholders about the mission and vision for the school, with the goal of finding the best ways to “communicate our sustainability goals and initiatives”.

They added: “We are committed to engaging with our students and this meeting was critical to gaining student perspectives for this important work.”

Duncan Meisel, executive director of Clean Creatives, a non-profit pushing creative agencies to disassociate from fossil-fuel firms, said campus activists’ concern makes sense. “I think you can make the case that Brunswick’s speciality is in greenwashing,” he said. “They helped BP to greenwash gas … and their other client Saudi Aramco’s biggest talking point is that they produce the greenest oil in the world, which is a totally silly way to look at the problem.”

He said it could be considered a “conflict of interest” for a school working to fight climate change to work with an agency that helps polluters.

The relationship with a sustainability school could also help Brunswick boost its image despite its continued enabling of polluters, Meisel added. “When oil and gas companies working with Brunswick are looking for a platform to share the message that they are so-called environmental stewards, Brunswick has a built in relationship that they can use with Doerr to promote those companies,” he said.

Concerns about the institution’s relationships with big oil began even before the institute’s September 2022 opening when its dean, Arun Majumdar, stated his intentions to work with and accept funding from fossil fuel companies.

“Not all oil and gas industries are on board, but there are some who are who are under pressure to diversify, otherwise they will not survive,” he told the New York Times in May 2022. “Those that want to diversify and be part of the solutions, and they want to engage with us, we are open to that.”

Thomas Hersbach, a policy fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, part of the Doerr School, found the statement to be “outrageous”. He said it was dangerous for research institutions to let oil companies fund their work, because such relationships can shape scholarly priorities.

Oil firms tend to donate to efforts related to solutions like carbon capture and hydrogen which they see as compatible with their fossil fuel-heavy business plans, he argued. Last year, for instance, the school announced it would be focusing on atmospheric greenhouse gas removal – a decision made with input from oil and gas companies, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

“Even if the researchers are really not influenced, it skews the agenda,” said Hersbach, who is also a member of the Coalition for a True School of Sustainability. “We’re not going to get a Stanford Chevron Center for Shutting Down Refineries Because They’re Giving People Cancer … even though we need to shut down refineries.”

Fossil fuel influence in academia is a widespread concern gaining traction among climate activists. A 2023 report from a student-led advocacy group found that fossil fuel companies funneled more than $700m in research funding to 27 US universities from 2010 to 2020, including Stanford.

There is some evidence that the donations are influential: one 2022 study indicated that industry-funded studies were more favorable than independent ones on the use of hydrogen – a technology favored by fossil fuel interests – for home heating. A congressional report released this year, which was based on a tranche of subpoenaed documents, also showed that oil companies “establish funded partnerships with academic institutions to enhance their credibility.”.

Hersbach was among hundreds of students and faculty who signed an open letter calling on the school to decline those donations, and the dozens who protested against the institution’s launch.

Shortly after the institute opened, school officials embarked on a “listening tour” to hear student and faculty concerns and created a committee to formally consider the issue.

Students and faculty called for more transparency around oil partnerships. And last year, Yellow Dot, the non-profit film studio run by the Don’t Look Up director Adam McKay, released a video criticizing the school’s ties to oil companies.

In an effort to boost transparency last fall, the Doerr school released a full list of their industry affiliate programs – research led by faculty and companies. And this year, another committee was formed to examine industrial affiliate programs. But the school has continued to partner with oil companies, and continually provoked ire from activists.

From 2011 to 2023, fossil fuel companies contributed over $68m to sponsored research at the schools that now comprise the Doerr School of Sustainability, according to Stanford data, including roughly $20m from TotalEnergies, $12m from ExxonMobil, and additional funds from Shell, BP, Chevron and Eni.

Varun Shirhatti, a junior in earth systems at the Doerr school, said the institution produces some good climate research that should be highlighted. But he is concerned that Brunswick’s PR campaign will mean information about the school’s fossil fuel relationships is “suppressed”.

Thanks to student activism, “awareness about the school’s ties to fossil fuel companies has been comparatively high”, said Shirhatti, who directs the campus organization Students for a Sustainable Stanford. “The very fact that Brunswick does work with big oil means that it is very good at what it does, for better or for worse,” he said.

Brunswick has long said it is working to slow the climate crisis. It says its “ambition is to help clients play a successful role in the transition to a resilient, zero-carbon world”.

In 2022, the firm helped a United Nations climate body to develop five climate policies and campaigns. And it says it is committed to the goals of achieving net zero emissions and adhering to the more ambitious temperature goals of the Paris climate agreement.

But Hersbach said Doerr’s relationship with Brunswick “probably won’t help” efforts to encourage the institution to cut ties with fossil fuel companies.

“They’re not going to be saying, yes, stop working with our clients,” he said.

Though the school said it engaged the PR firm to address “reputational challenges”, Hersbach said the oil funding itself can be a mark on some researchers’ reputations, making their work seem compromised.

“The fossil fuel industry are obviously the bad guys,” he said. “The contrast between the school’s stated mission, which is to address climate change, and the source of part of that money, which is the people causing climate change – that’s just madness.”