Description:

In 2022 profits for the five oil majors soared to nearly $200 billion. In the same year, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels hit a record high. The global energy crisis has pushed millions into poverty, and climate-related disasters are devastating the world’s poorest communities. Meanwhile, oil major CEOs received historic annual bonuses – some jumping as much as 50% year on year. Over the last decade, the CEOs of Chevron & Exxon have been paid half a billion dollars. Instead of investing profits in the transition to clean energy, oil majors continue their destructive investment in fossil fuels.

Countries who’ve done the least to cause the climate crisis are affected most by its impacts. Sea levels rising, sustained heatwaves, increasingly severe bushfires, drought, hurricanes, floods and species extinction. As global heating increases, the negative impacts of climate change will increase in frequency and severity.

Our client 'Energy Profits’, a group of international investigative journalists and researchers, wants to instigate and drive a conversation around the need for money to be channelled, either via taxation or obligatory donations, from the largest and most profitable global oil and gas companies. Taxing their record-breaking profits is the just solution to financing the Loss and Damage Fund.

To help meet this goal, we were asked to create a distinctive brand, website, infographics, video, and social assets to be used and referenced by the national media and partner climate organisations. It would allow these third parties to raise awareness of the message, put the heat on the oil majors and, crucially, provide the necessary facts and data to substantiate and drive the conversation.

As a result, we created the ‘Energy Profits’ brand and website. A hard-hitting and visually compelling site that brings to life the uncomfortable and shocking statistics, highlighting just how much oil companies and their CEOs are profiting at the expense of the planet.

The key to the concept was bold data visualisation of the shocking statistics, using motion and animation to bring them to life and make them easy to digest. This translates across the entire brand including the logomark, with the ‘E’ icon representing growth in terms of profit, remuneration, emissions, and damage. The colour palette uses a combination of harsh black and white combined with the red, orange, and yellow hues to symbolise the planet heating up and the increasingly growing climate destruction. Combined with clean type and powerful photography, it makes for uncomfortable reading that's hard to ignore.