Across a wide range of industries, including tobacco, sugar-sweetened drinks, food, alcohol, gambling, transport, asbestos, pesticides and fossil fuels, there is a robust evidence base establishing that commercial actors have been found to pursue opportunities to maximise their profits, at the detriment of human health, wellbeing, ecological and climatic integrity.
A wide body of evidence demonstrates the various strategies and tactics deployed by these actors and are found to be used repeatedly across sectors.
Termed the ‘Commercial Determinants of Health’ these have included:
- deliberately misleading citizens regarding the harms their products cause;
- spreading doubt about the risks of harm and its causes (which leads to delays in regulation);
- using front groups or funding targeted advertising and campaigns in order to do so;
- influencing education of the public, professionals, and children and young people;
- aiming to create ‘health halos’ or ‘green-washing’ to increase their social legitimacy, involvement in policy-making, and presenting industry actors as ‘part of the solution’ and capable of self-regulation (including through Corporate Social Responsibility projects);
- influencing research and academic institutions to create bodies of evidence favourable to the industry’s interests while attacking and undermining independent researchers;
- promoting voluntary or self-governed regulatory frameworks over mandatory/imposed regulatory frameworks, influence via ‘revolving doors’, and lobbying policy-makers directly (as for example over the windfall tax in 2023).
It has been argued that they have had a cumulative, cross-industry effect: ‘spreading misinformation, shaping ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘nanny state’ narratives, weakening regulation and undermining science and policymaking.
In the context of fossil fuels and the climate crisis, these actions are a barrier to effective action if not acknowledged and addressed and have major health implications. Such actors should have no role in making or influencing policy.
Previous experiences of successfully addressing other public health threats with strong commercial determinants focus (such as tobacco, infant formula and sugar-sweetened beverages) offer valuable lessons for work on fossil fuels and a just transition. There is a strong need for the health community to clearly make these arguments, and to become skilled in how to effectively counter industry influence and harmful practices.
The health sector should ensure that appropriate lessons are learnt from policy areas such as tobacco control, food and drink, and gambling with regard to the fossil fuel industry as a key commercial determinant of health; educate health professionals, policy makers, and the public about these issues; and recognise the central importance for health of preventing conflicts of interest and reducing industry influence on policy and regulation.
[i] Gilmore AB, Fabbri A, Baum F, Bertscher A, Bondy K, Chang HJ, Demaio S, Erzse A, Freudenberg N, Friel S, Hofman KJ. Defining and conceptualising the commercial determinants of health. The Lancet. 2023 Apr 8;401(10383):1194-213.
[ii] https://www.desmog.com/2023/10/24/revealed-the-oil-and-gas-lobbying-campaign-to-water-down-windfall-tax/#:~:text=They%20form%20part%20of%20a,now%20prime%20minister
[iii] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9831328/