Edelman Trust Barometer Fact Check

Clean Creatives claims the Edelman Trust Barometer is compromised by the firm's ties to climate deniers and autocratic states, alleging that the data overstates trust in governments that are Edelman clients and contradicts the firm's public climate commitments.

• Clean Creatives alleges that Edelman has violated its 2014 pledge and 2023 commitments regarding climate policy by continuing to work with climate deniers, specifically citing their role working with Charles Koch, who has provided over $100 million to climate-denying organizations.
• The document argues that the Trust Barometer's data on trusted governments is biased toward Edelman's clients, noting that four of the six highest-ranked governments in the 2023 report—China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Singapore—are current or past clients.
• The author suggests that trust levels in authoritarian countries are inflated due to 'autocratic trust bias' and 'preference falsification,' citing the 2019 polling in Saudi Arabia which occurred shortly after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
• Clean Creatives claims Edelman promotes fossil fuel companies as climate leaders while those companies are among the lowest-rated sectors in the 2023 Climate Trust Barometer; it specifically names Masdar, Chevron, Sasol, Shell, and TotalEnergies as clients for whom Edelman does work contrary to trusted climate communications.
• The document highlights a contradiction between the praise given by Edelman's Independent Council of Climate Experts for New York City's 2019 Climate Mobilization Act and the actions of Edelman clients, such as NationalGrid, which spent nearly $2 million to defeat New York climate policies.

APA

Meisel, D. (2024). Edelman Trust Barometer Fact Check. Clean Creatives. https://cleancreatives.org/news/edelman-trust-barometer-fact-check

Chicago

Meisel, Duncan. Edelman Trust Barometer Fact Check. Clean Creatives, 2024. https://cleancreatives.org/news/edelman-trust-barometer-fact-check.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Meisel |first1=Duncan |title=Edelman Trust Barometer Fact Check |publisher=Clean Creatives |date=16 January 2024 |url=https://cleancreatives.org/news/edelman-trust-barometer-fact-check |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{meisel2024edelman, author = {Meisel, Duncan}, title = {{Edelman Trust Barometer Fact Check}}, publisher = {Clean Creatives}, year = {2024}, month = jan, url = {https://cleancreatives.org/news/edelman-trust-barometer-fact-check}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }