The “Good” Neighbour – Buying Community Consent
The tactic: Oil and gas companies use their resources to sponsor community events, programs, and infrastructure in order to build social license. They may fund community projects, municipal work, raise money for charities or good causes, and generally participate in community activities. These activities do not need to be tied to energy, resource extraction, or the environment. This is essentially buying their way into communities’ good graces, not unlike bribery. 
The strategy: Creating the impression that an oil company is a positive contributor to the community can stifle community opposition to the company or the industry writ large. It makes people more willing to defend the company or rationalize and ignore the harms of its other activities. This is an integral part of building social license, in particular among communities that are also facing or at risk of direct negative impacts. It’s also common in communities where many people are economically connected to the industry, as it reinforces other tactics like encouraging workers to advocate for Big Oil. Companies use mostly implicit, but sometimes explicit, threats that if the industry is not supported the community’s access to things like community centres, educational enrichment, etc. will decline and the community will suffer. This is not without irony or hypocrisy when, for example, a company funds a health centre where community members seek treatment for ailments brought on by the company’s pollution.
Where you’ve seen it before:
In Canada, FortisBC pays for climate leadership programs and has positioned itself to deliver the government’s energy efficiency programs. This creates the impression that the company is delivering climate action, even though the programs are government-funded. Meanwhile, FortisBC is also delaying and fighting the transition off of gas, and also greenwashing.
When Enbridge gave $5000 to the South Bruce Fire Rescue Service, it was profiled in the local newspaper. When TC Energy made donations to Prince Township Volunteer Fire Department for a new truck to fight wildfires, it was a story in The Sault Star. LNG Canada, a consortium of international fossil gas companies, received similar publicity for donating to the Mount Elizabeth Theatre in Kitimat, BC.
Fossil fuel companies pay to have the naming rights to community amenities like the Emera Oval in Halifax, Suncor Community Leisure Centre in Fort McMurray, and the University of Calgary’s Canadian Natural Resources Limited Engineering Complex. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, FortisBC, Enbridge all sponsored the BC Union of Municipalities annual convention.
This isn’t just generosity. It’s an intentional public relations and branding strategy that these companies know will keep them in the publics good books. And that they use that good will as leverage with governments. A U.S. Congressional investigation exposed an email from the American Petroleum Institute where it described their work with “nontraditional local allies”, including the Girl Guides of America, as the “best and most influential voices with targeted policymakers on industry issues.” Oil giants BP, Shell, and Chevron were also found to have used sponsorships to assuage public concerns over fossil fuel companies’ role in the climate crisis. Meanwhile, these companies were simultaneously lobbying against climate policies.
An investigation by journalists at DeSmog revealed that: “Chevron leveraged its sponsorship programs to ‘advance business objectives’ with investors, government and customers, and Shell used philanthropy to tackle the problem of ‘low credibility and trust’ amid ‘rising societal expectations on climate action’ while ensuring that oil and gas remained ‘a profitable cash engine.’”
This type of reliance on corporate generosity can sometimes backfire. This year, a national climate-resilience charity based in Alberta was left in the lurch when Suncor Energy Foundation suddenly cancelled their three-year funding pledge. The charity was still waiting to receive more than half of the promised $900,000. When an employee of the charity posted on LinkedIn explaining that an abrupt loss of funding would impact their organization’s activities, the organization was quickly contacted by Suncor’s lawyers who gave a stern warning that the charity was “on our radar and they’re flying too closer to the sun.” Suncor has reportedly fired all the foundation’s former staff except for one administrator, and similarly abruptly ended support for multiple charities.
