AMV BBDO, one of the UK’s best-known creative agencies, faces the very first step of an employment tribunal today from a former staff member who says she was discriminated against for speaking out against greenwashing.
A UK employment tribunal will today begin to hear the case of Polina Zabrodskaya, a former creative director at AMV BBDO, who claims “harassment and discrimination” for speaking against contentious sustainability claims from clients. The case, years in the making, will commence with a preliminary hearing where the judge will deliberate on whether the case goes forward, the first step in any employment tribunal action. It is typically conducted over telephone. If the case goes forward, it would likely take some time unless a settlement is agreed upon during the process.
In the words of Lawrence Davies of Equal Justice, Zabrodskaya’s solicitor: “This is likely the most significant climate and environmental sustainability whistleblower tribunal claim to date, exposing the critical issues that many global corporations ignore or greenwash.”
Offering an unusual amount of openness on her case, Zabrodskaya aired her side on LinkedIn and in The Drum today. Her allegations, first reported by the Financial Times, cut to the heart of one of advertising’s most uncomfortable tensions: what happens when conscience clashes with commerce?
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Zabrodskaya says she raised ethical concerns about campaigns her agency was creating for Mars brands such as Galaxy chocolate and Sheba cat food – questioning whether the sustainability claims behind them could be substantiated back in 2021. In The Drum blog, she compared the industry’s approach to corporate responsibility to the smog-cloaked streets of her Russian childhood: visible, undeniable and largely ignored.
On greenwashing: “There’s no single big lie – just dozens of softer, polished distortions,” she wrote.
AMV BBDO has said it “will refute the various claims” made in the tribunal and told The Drum this morning it will not be commenting on an active case, which is the more conventional approach to proceedings.
To the FT, the agency acknowledged the issue had arisen internally and that it had commissioned two independent HR reviews, which reportedly found no evidence of retaliation or discrimination based on Zabrodskaya’s beliefs.
A spokesperson for AMV BBDO told the FT the agency supports sustainability and is committed to “ethical communications,” and it continues to be part of the industry initiative Ad Net Zero. Mars, for its part, described the case as an “internal employment dispute” and stood by its broader sustainability commitments, pointing to billions in investment and pledges toward a deforestation-free supply chain. It also noted that its advertising complies with all relevant regulations and internal standards.
The Drum editor Gordon Young asked the broader question: “At the heart of this dispute lies a bigger, industry-wide question: what protections, if any, should exist for those who act as whistleblowers or conscientious objectors within creative agencies? The ad world thrives on bold ideas – but are there limits to how boldly individuals can push back when those ideas, in their view, edge into greenwashing?”
Zabrodskaya’s case taps into wider conversations already playing out across agency meeting rooms and Slack channels across the industry. This is one of the first times we are seeing it play out in the public forum, and the results could set a precedent.
The case continues.
