Lobbying alignment with climate science

InfluenceMap's latest report looks at the climate policy engagement of c.300 of the largest companies in the world, all of whom have publicly committed to net zero or similar. It found that 58% of those companies are at risk of “net zero greenwash” due to their lack of support for – and, in many cases, opposition to – climate policies. https://bitly.ws/32K3P I suspect 58% is actually an under-estimate when you factor in companies’ indirect political footprint – ie., their trade associations’ lobbying. (InfluenceMap does take indirect engagement into account, but, for my money, they underweight it in their scoring system.) Trade association lobbying is to a company’s political footprint what Scope 3 emissions are to its carbon footprint. We know that Scope 3 emissions often dwarf Scopes 1 & 2. Corporate climate commitments that ignore Scope 3 are therefore, rightly, seen as inadequate. We should be similarly sceptical about companies that fail to clean up their indirect policy engagement, even when their direct policy engagement is overwhelmingly positive. Consider a few examples of companies that, according to the methodology used to calculate that 58% figure, are NOT at risk of “net zero greenwash” due to their policy engagement: The Coca-Cola Company: of the 14 associations linked to them in InfluenceMap’s database, none scores well enough to be rated as “aligned” with the Paris Agreement. The majority are what InfluenceMap calls “partially misaligned”, while 4 – including the notoriously anti-climate U.S. Chamber of Commerce – are plain old “misaligned”, which is a polite way of saying they are actively harming humanity’s chances of limiting global warming to well below 2°C. DuPont: linked to 12 associations, of which 3 are misaligned and 7 are partially misaligned. A whopping 2 out of 12 score highly enough to be rated as aligned. Meta: linked to 13 associations, of which 6 are misaligned and 5 are partially misaligned. 2 are aligned. Novartis: linked to 9 associations, of which 5 are misaligned, 1 partially misaligned and 3 insufficiently active to be assigned a score. Saint-Gobain: linked to 6 associations, of which 3 are partially misaligned and 3 are misaligned. Siemens: linked to 30 associations, of which 9 are misaligned, 5 aligned, and the rest either partially misaligned or inactive.   In sum, when you look at the indirect policy engagement of these 6 supposedly “good” companies, in all cases, at least 1 in 4 of their trade associations is lobbying in a way that actively undermines our ability to keep global warming well below 2°C. Of their combined 84 affiliations, just 9 are with associations whose lobbying might actually be improving our chances of staying well below 2°C. My takeaway from this is that ALL companies need to get a handle on what their trade associations are up to on climate policy, even if – perhaps especially if – their direct policy engagement is consistently pro-climate. Ed Collins Dylan Tanner

We analysed 8,500 firms and found fewer than 1 in 4 show any signs of climate lobbying oversight. This is not just a disclosure gap - it’s a climate risk hiding in plain sight. Here’s what the graph shows and why it matters for policy, investors, and net zero 👇 ✅ Score 4 – Comprehensive A public lobbying alignment report that thoroughly addresses both direct and indirect lobbying efforts, with named oversight (e.g., CEO/Board involvement). 🟢 Score 3 – Strong Demonstrates effective management of both internal and external lobbying activities; however, it lacks a public report or an internal audit. 🟡 Score 2 – Moderate Contains some climate lobbying policy or identifies a responsible manager, but the details are insufficient or limited in scope. 🟠 Score 1 – Limited Features a generic lobbying policy that fails to address climate issues. 🔴 Score 0 – Silent No information available regarding any policies or actions related to climate lobbying. Why investors and companies should care 🧐 🚦 Governance gap Lobbying has a significant impact on the rules that govern markets; however, most companies operate without any oversight regarding this influence. 🧾 Unaccountable influence Most companies cannot map their lobbying footprint. Trade associations often take aggressive anti-climate stances, funded by companies that claim to support net zero. 🤔 You can’t defend what you can’t see If companies do not govern or disclose their lobbying, investors may be holding climate obstruction in their ESG portfolios and not know it. 🛠️ This should be a management fix This could be a high-systemic-impact, minimal-effort intervention. Political alignment is not a complex engineering overhaul—it’s a governance fix ESG teams can implement. ❓ Should companies be allowed to claim net-zero alignment while ignoring, or even participating directly or indirectly in actions that oppose climate action? Why it matters to climate change 🌍 📜 Policy is our most powerful decarbonisation tool. 🔄 Better governance can fix this disconnect by aligning public affairs teams with ESG teams and the overall values of the company. 🧾 Trade associations do most of the lobbying against climate policies. Companies often do not know who they fund, let alone what positions those groups are taking. That has to change. 📊 Our new database on climate lobbying governance and report is available (link in first comment). 💡 Good climate lobbying governance does not need to be just an ESG issue. Effectively managing your policy influence should be a mainstream governance and management concern. #ClimateLobbying #ESG #CorporateGovernance #NetZero #Stewardship

“Big tech goes to great lengths to be seen as green, but its lobbying strategy tells another story.” Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon – some of the largest technology firms in the world – have all vowed to confront the climate crisis and have each set goals to slash planet-heating emissions. But they have also hired US lobbyists that work with the fossil fuel companies that are worsening global heating. According to F Minus, a new database of state-level lobbying disclosures: - Microsoft has hired a lobbyist who also pushes the interests of ExxonMobil to lawmakers - Google shares lobbyists with at least seven fossil fuel companies, including Kinder Morgan, the Colonial Pipeline Company and the American Petroleum Institute - Amazon, which has come under severe pressure from some employees to do more on climate, has fossil fuel-aligned lobbyists in 27 different US states. More on the F Minus database here: https://lnkd.in/eriMPD5K https://lnkd.in/enEiaVxk

A new study shows that big European businesses have become more supportive of science-aligned climate policy in their public advocacy, however business associations' positions do not reflect this change. This divergence between policy positions of individual companies and the business associations that represent them is also a problem in the #omnibus process where recent research suggests that firms are more supportive of the #CSRD than publicly portrayed by associations. Possible explanations: (1) Associations follow the "lowest common denominator effect" by only advocating for those policies that are supported by the least ambitious of their members. (2) Ambitious companies are not vocal enough in the associations and allow less progressive firms to take over. (3) Companies take a more progressive stance publicly (to protect their reputation) but wilfully tolerate that associations push back. In practice, it is probably a mix of these explanations. But this finding raises an essential question that policy makers should reflect on: Which voice are you really hearing? === Financial Times Coverage: https://lnkd.in/dqy4Qqtx Report on Climate Advocacy: https://lnkd.in/dmt3fiA9