Fury as King honours boss of ad agency with major polluters on its books - including BP and Shell

The Government was under fire last night for handing a CBE to the boss of an advertising firm which represents polluting companies.

Campaigners and an MP were furious that millionaire Mark Read, chief executive of giant WPP, was given a gong. It means the eco-friendly King has honoured the man whose firm makes money from fossil-fuel exploiting concerns.

Anyone can be nominated for gongs but winners are selected by an honours committee and checked by the Prime Minister or other cabinet officials. The choices are rubber stamped by the monarch. Last night Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said: “It is frankly ridiculous to see someone who has profited so handsomely from promoting the interests of the fossil fuel lobby publicly honoured under this Tory Government.”

The Brighton MP added: “As we descend ever more rapidly into a climate crisis, the last people we should be rewarding are those colluding in the destruction of our one precious planet.”

WPP has 61 polluting clients on its books, the highest of any PR agency globally, according to an analysis by climate newsroom De-Smog. Customers include BP, Shell, Equinor, ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco – the world’s biggest corporate greenhouse gas emitter. And 42% of WPP board members have close ties with the likes of The Carlyle Group, recently blasted for non-renewable investments.

The Royals also hired WPP’s agency AKQA to create branding for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Mr Read’s CBE in Charles’s New Year’s Honours will raise questions over whether the nature-lover monarch was aware of the group’s murky record.

WPP is the biggest ad agency by revenue internationally, netting over £14billion in 2022 alone. Their anti-green ties come despite bosses pledging to reach net zero emissions in the next six years. Other brands represented by the conglomerate include Cadbury’s, Vodafone, Heinz, Dove, HSBC and Rolls-Royce.

Andrew Simms, of climate think-tank the New Weather Institute, said: “WPP is floating on a polluted sea of fossil fuel contracts – so in giving WPP’s boss an honour, what exactly is our ‘green’ King rewarding, services to denial or duplicity? Advertising has to stop fuelling climate breakdown, and that means dropping polluter clients and an end to adverts for high-carbon products and lifestyles.” The King, 75, has committed to net zero and has a history of campaigning for organic farming and tackling climate change.

He proudly owns an Aston Martin which has been modified to partly run on bioethanol and 90% of the energy for his office comes from renewable sources. He has fitted solar panels on the roofs of his official residence at Clarence House and private houses at Highgrove and Ray Mill –generating enough electricity annually to power 20 average houses. And he buys credits from sustainable projects to offset the carbon emissions from his household and non-official travel.

A Government spokesman said: “It would be inappropriate to comment on any individual honours recipient. Rigorous processes are in place to protect the integrity of the honours system.”

Buckingham Palace declined to comment. WPP was approached for comment.