Researchers expose fossil fuel companies’ communications facade
Fossil fuel companies want you to think that they’re leaders in renewable energy — Northeastern University research finds a concerted communication strategy that suggests otherwise.
Fossil fuel companies say that they want to be on the front lines of renewable energy, with advertisements, social media and even their own shareholder corporate reports espousing their commitment to green energy and combating climate change.
However, research out of Northeastern University says otherwise.
In two studies, published in 2023 and 2026, researchers identified a concerted effort across multiple multinational fossil fuel companies to, with one hand, gesture toward the benefits of renewable energy sources like solar power while, with the other hand, position natural gas — a fossil fuel that is likely responsible for 30-40% of both methane and carbon dioxide emissions in the United States — as a viable alternative to renewables.
The researchers call this strategy “doublespeak” in reference to the George Orwell novel “1984,” in which “doublethink” referred to the way characters had to believe two contradicting facts at the same time. They say that it points to these companies’ efforts to delay reliance on their industry, and in turn, delay climate action. In both studies, the researchers focused on four of the largest global fossil fuel companies by market value, British Petroleum (BP), ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies.
Dipa Desai, a Ph.D. student in public policy at Northeastern, says that fossil fuel companies’ communication strategies used to drive a hard line between renewable energy and themselves, even denying the role of fossil fuels in climate change.
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In recent years, however, their strategy has shifted, Desai says. 2023 research, led by former Ph.D. student Yutong Si, identified how fossil fuel companies have instead turned to a far subtler strategy.
As part of that work, Si and Desai “analyzed thousands of tweets from the former platform Twitter and looked at trends across messaging,” Desai says. Using topic modeling, a form of machine learning, the researchers were able to determine if various topics occurred in proximity with one another, for instance, if mentions of natural gas alongside renewable solar power.
Desai says that every time a tweet mentioned a renewable energy source, there was a strong likelihood that it would appear in close proximity with language tying it to a fossil fuel. All four oil and gas companies “were strategically tying natural gas development to renewables,” she continues.
Each company seemed to have its favorite renewable energy source to align itself with. British Petroleum tweeted about wind and solar power most often, while ExxonMobil mentioned biofuels — fuels derived from renewable biological sources rather than fossil fuels — most often, for example. But these tweets were “mentioning renewable technologies as a way to reinforce the future of their core business, oil and gas,” the paper says.
For example, a June 2021 tweet from TotalEnergies said, “The use of gas in transportation is another way to reduce CO2 emissions, especially by blending biogas and natural gas. This is why TotalEnergies is committed to producing more ‘green’ gas by 2030.”
“The tweets that simultaneously mention both renewables and natural gas,” like the one above, “are perpetuating the notion that both are necessary,” Si and Desai argue in the paper.
Desai says this fits into a larger “greenwashing” strategy, where “companies promote a facade of taking clean energy action, or sustainability actions, while hiding, maybe, the true nature of their actions.”
Subsequent research, which was published in March this year, performed a similar analysis, but this time on the annual corporate reports that publicly traded companies are legally required to publish.
While tweets may be more public facing, annual corporate reports, distributed primarily to shareholders and regulators, are nevertheless are vital communication tools in portraying a company’s image, motivations and even in swaying stockholders and public regulators, says Sheila Puffer, a distinguished professor of international business who was involved with both studies.
In both the tweets and the corporate reports, “every word is minted to reflect the company’s image,” Puffer notes.
Diana Bozhilova, associate professor of politics and international relations at Northeastern University London, says that corporate reports of major companies are often even “entered into evidence when policymakers, decision makers consider changes to policy.”
In addition to policymakers and national regulators, Puffer points out that corporate reports also impact both major non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the sustainability space and even the general public.
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In a 2022 corporate report, for example, in a section describing their “energy transition performance,” Shell says that it wants “To help to transform the energy system” by developing “low- and zero-carbon alternatives to traditional fuels, including biofuels and hydrogen.”
In an earlier report, Shell highlighted natural gas as a platform with “significant advantages when used to generate power alongside renewables: it can quickly compensate for dips in supply from solar or wind generation.” In positioning solar and wind power as unreliable — “dips in supply” — Shell, and other companies like it, are actually making a case for their traditional, fossil fuel-based portfolios as opposed to helping increase the reliability of renewables, the researchers say.
While they can’t be positive about why the companies have leaned toward natural gas, favoring that energy source seems a consistent strategy across all four multinationals. “Gas is perceived as cleaner, because we visually can’t see the impacts” as easily as coal burning or diesel combustion, Desai posits. Additionally, it’s “promoted as ‘natural’ and less carbon emitting than other fossil fuels.”
Rather than “natural” gas, the researchers often prefer to call it “fossil” gas to highlight its origin.
Bozhilova also notes that, historically, “natural gas had been seen as a plausible alternative to oil, for instance,” obscuring its actual harm on the environment. Oil and other fossil fuels are a major driver of climate change, according to the majority of scientists.
“It’s getting harder and harder for people to make the case that renewables aren’t the [best] option for transition,” Desai says. “I think, maybe, the facade is crumbling a bit as we experience more and more heat waves, and more anomalous climate events.”
