Climate activists target Edelman with ‘meditation’ protest

A climate campaign group held a protest outside Edelman’s London headquarters yesterday, launching a satirical mobile app to critique the agency’s work with fossil-fuel companies.

The campaign group Serious People ‘meditating’ outside Edelman’s office in London’s Victoria.

Yesterday (22 May), the climate campaign group Serious People launched a mobile app called Oilwell and staged a protest at Edelman’s London offices.
The app includes meditations that ironically address climate-related disasters, with titles such as Smog Breathing Exercise, Drought Meditation and Drowning Mindfully.

Twelve campaigners from Serious People gathered at Edelman’s offices at 8:40am for the protest.
The campaign group claims there is a “dangerous conflict of interest” in Edelman’s dual work across public health and high-emissions industries.

Jamie Inman, a campaigner at Serious People, said:

“Edelman pumps out oil and gas PR and expects people to put up with the damage to us and the planet.”

Inman argued that the health and wellbeing sector represents an “Achilles heel” for PR agencies linked to fossil fuels, highlighting that “Edelman clients like AstraZeneca are prioritising action on climate”.

“The conflict between health work and fossil-fuel work is clear to see. Edelman is going to have to pick a side,” he added.

Oliver Frost, who identifies as the “spiritual lead” at Serious People, described the action as not a traditional protest, but a “mindful acceptance practice”.

“Edelman’s fossil-fuel PR exists to keep us calm about the climate crisis. We’ve simply taken the next step in turning them into meditations,” Frost explained.
”Rather than telling Edelman to stop helping fossil-fuel companies expand, we’re learning to live with the chaos it’ll cause. Together we meditated on droughts, drowning and forest fires,” he added.

This approach by Serious People marks a departure from more traditional direct-action protests, such as the recent red paint vandalism at APCO’s London office by Palestine Action over the consultancy’s lobbying work for an Israeli military technology company.

Previous climate-related actions against Edelman include, in 2023, Extinction Rebellion’s protest outside the agency’s London office, hand-delivering letters to staff and installing a ‘green-washing line’ which called for Edelman to “cut the ties with fossil fuels”.

More recently, over 30 health organisations have vowed to stop collaborating with PR and advertising agencies that also serve the fossil-fuel industry.

PRWeek contacted Edelman for comment on the latest protest.

Edelman is the fourth-largest PR agency in the UK, according to PRWeek’s latest UK Top 150 Consultancies table.