DeSmog Investigation: Big Oil Cultural Sponsorships

Rebecca John just published remarkable new research on DeSmog on how oil companies use donations and sponsorships of art museums, theater productions and even The Girl Scouts and the US Olympic Committee, to promote their brands, improve their reputation, to essentially buy credibility. While this is not a new notion or finding, the evidence in this investigation is quite recent, and previously unreported.

Using oil industry internal documents released in April 2024 by the Senate Budget Committee and members of the House of Representatives, Rebecca found crucial discussions of the design and desired benefits of these sponsorships to the oil companies Shell, BP and Chevron as well as the American Petroleum Institute.

Dharna Noor at The Guardian wrote a great article about the DeSmog research with experts commenting.

Read the articles, and find the referenced documents in our DocumentCloud collection