"BBC Accused of Doing PR for Major Polluters", 22 August 2024

"The BBC has produced dozens of films and articles for oil and gas companies, agricultural giants, fossil fuel states, and high-emission transport firms in recent years, DeSmog can reveal. 

Experts say the BBC has been “greenwashing” the image of companies and countries contributing to global emissions by trumpeting their dubious climate credentials and promoting their favoured solutions to the crisis. 

The content was produced by BBC StoryWorks, a studio that produces videos, podcasts, and articles paid for commercial clients, which it publishes on BBC channels outside the UK. 

On its website, BBC StoryWorks boasts that it leverages the reputation of the BBC – “our century-long pedigree as the world’s most trusted storytellers” – to create content for commercial clients “that moves and inspires curious minds, across platforms and across the globe”.

BBC StoryWorks produces traditional adverts for its clients, as well as content “with an editorial style” (known as “branded” or “native” content).

Branded content appears outside the UK on the BBC website – the most viewed news platform in the world – and on its non-UK broadcast channels, in a similar format to normal editorial output. However, branded content promotes the paying client and typically features interviews with the client’s senior executives. It is only distinguished by a disclaimer that it has been paid for by an external organisation....

In recent months, the BBC has created content for a number of oil and gas companies, including the French fossil fuel company Engie, which owns a number of coal-fired power plants and relies heavily on gas for its energy production. 

BBC StoryWorks has also produced content for liquified natural gas (LNG) companies, and has touted the energy source as a cleaner alternative to other fossil fuels. This is despite experts warning that the booming LNG industry could contribute more heavily to the climate crisis than the ongoing use of coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. 

Agriculture accounts for 21 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and BBC StoryWorks has produced films for some of the world’s biggest food and farming firms, including Nestlé and Bayer, often promoting the disputed green technologies backed by the industry. As previously revealed by DeSmog, BBC StoryWorks has produced dozens of documentaries sponsored by the pesticide giant Corteva, publicising the technologies developed and sold by the firm.

Petrostates with a history of human rights abuses – including the imprisonment of journalists – have also been promoted by BBC StoryWorks....

The BBC is committed to science-led climate reporting and in 2021 signed the Climate Content Pledge, promising to do “more and better climate story-telling on screen across all genres.”

However, critics say that BBC StoryWorks is using the broadcaster’s reputation – including its role as a public service broadcaster – to make money from commercial content that often flouts its editorial values....

A BBC StoryWorks spokesperson said that the studio “operates entirely separately from the BBC’s editorial operations” and that its output “is clearly labelled as commercial content”.

However, content labelling doesn’t always help readers and viewers to understand that it has been paid for by a commercial client. A 2018 Boston University study found that only one in 10 people recognised native advertising – which includes branded content – as advertising rather than reporting.

The BBC StoryWorks spokesperson added that, “BBC StoryWorks operates under robust and established governance and is required to comply with the BBC’s guidelines as set out in the publicly available Advertising and Sponsorship Guidelines. 

“Central to these guidelines is a commitment to factual accuracy in any piece of content. All of the content cited in this article was approved as compliant with the BBC’s advertising guidelines prior to its publication.”..."