Blog post
Polluting our Education: What You Didn’t Know About Careers Services
Ruth Watson
February 19, 2026
In 2026, fossil fuel companies having a hand in UK politics is old news, but their spill into schools and education has seemingly slipped through the cracks. Through careers services, teaching resources and educational initiatives, fossil fuel companies like Shell and BP are reaping the rewards of controlling and improving their image, while continuing to destroy the planet. This blog post considers one of these: partnerships with careers services. Using ‘UpSkillMe’ (a career events and programmes organisation that schools outsource careers advice and guidance to), and BP’s manipulative greenwashing as an example, let me explain why careers services platforming these partnerships isn’t okay. Let me explain why we want out. And to these career services and educational programmes, let me tell you why it’s us or them.
Choosing a career, making decisions, coming to terms with the prospect of having to get a job can be daunting, with many young people worried about employment. It is a time of deciding on priorities, goals and values while also dealing with excitement, worry and fear. Careers services and careers resources are provided to support students and pupils with navigating all of this. The website UpSkillMe is an example of a service partnered with schools that some of us at Teach The Future (TtF) attend. One of our members in sixth form recently attended a school-organised event through UpSkillMe, a webinar with BP. The TtF member listened to the BP representative spin a tale of sustainability and care, talking about how perfect working for BP could be for those wanting to use their skills for a green future.
Confronted by an uncomfortable state of cognitive dissonance, many questions came to mind…
But I thought they’d reduced investments in renewables to appease shareholders?
But I thought fossil fuel firms were the biggest polluters?
So, they’re profiting simultaneously from claiming environmental values while also profiting from not backing it up with actions… that’s greenwashing.
The BP introduction on UpSkillMe is a demonstrative example of how their greenwashing aims to manipulate us, profiting off our position as pupils and students and instrumentalising our worries, fears and values. Looking after and doing more for the environment is important to a large majority of children and young people. Therefore, as ethical and environmental concerns rise, BP is pitching to our concerns to cajole us into forgetting or ignoring the facts. The claim that “BP’s purpose is reimagining energy for people and the planet” signalling virtue, preying on our desire for a better world to persuade us that our values align with theirs and attempting to improve our idea of them.
A company boosting their image isn’t a new business strategy and has been a competitive profit-making aim for years. For example, initiatives like CSR (corporate social responsibility) involve strategies and projects that appeal to the public’s morals, cultivating trust, loyalty and a positive reputation, therefore gaining competitive advantage. Targeting careers education services brings their fallacious discourse directly to the places where young people are looking to form ideas and find guidance. This exploits the difficulties of approaching working life and higher studies by misdirecting our ambitions, using deceptive claims of sustainable and green jobs to pull us into their ranks. While they act to endanger our futures, they use dishonesty and lies in an attempt to secure theirs. But we don’t want our values and fears feeding company profits, especially in schools and education.
Though perhaps immorality is to be expected from fossil fuel companies, to see careers services inviting and platforming such abject greenwashing poses the question, who are they serving? In this example, UpSkillMe boasts how their “partnership with BP helped the organisation reach their social mobility goals”. As with CSR, Social mobility goals are driven by improving image and reputation. It’s clear that UpSkillMe is actively aiding BP create a virtuous image, supporting the structures that justify BP’s claim to social value. To socially condemn a corporation is to hold it to account and push for improvement (‘stakeholder pressure’), therefore, by playing into the moral cover-up, UpSkillMe invests in BP’s longevity, helping them sidestep ethical and environmental accountability.
However, the security of our future and BP’s are fundamentally incompatible. As climate change threatens more and more damage (including economic), it is clear that the interests of profit-hungry polluters are irreconcilable with climate change. Therefore, for organisations created to help prepare us for the future, to invest in fossil fuel firms’ interests (as indicated by their actions, not their words) is to disengage with ours, undermining their very purpose. This is why it’s us or them. Fossil fuel firms are always going to serve their selfish interests. They’re going to adapt their narrative to secure longevity, profits and shares. So career services have a choice to make. If they choose young people, they need to serve us by not supporting and platforming these companies. We want to opt out of the lies.
We want to resist fossil fuel companies by exposing the ways they operate in education. This work adds to that of organisations like Culture Unstained who have campaigned against BP’s relationship with the Science Museum, and People and Planet with their fossil-free careers campaign. We want to call out compliance and advocate for our futures, greener futures, where there’s no room for fossil fuel companies.