Advocacy, Lobbying, and Political Engagement

The Good Lobby Tracker

Attention to ESG disclosure has risen dramatically in recent years, and yet the "political footprint" of businesses consistently flies under the radar. This resource can help you understand this phenomenon, as well as understand the tools that are currently available for reporting on corporate political activities such as lobbying, political spending, and other forms of public policy influence. The tracker assesses all major corporate political responsibility initiatives, identifies trends and best practices, and provides specific recommendations for action for different stakeholders, including companies and investors. It also features a series of ranked scorecards for each of the 27 initiatives assessed. This guide will be most useful to corporate change agents, investors, and others interested in making political conduct of businesses more visible and better aligned with addressing sustainability challenges.

The Global Standard on Responsible Climate Lobbying

This global standard was created to provide a framework to ensure that companies' lobbying and political engagement activities align with the goal of restricting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It includes an investor statement in support of responsible climate lobbying as well as an appendix of 14 indicators of responsible climate lobbying, which outlines requirements among policy and climate change-related commitments; governance; and actions. This standard is an excellent starting point for any business currently engaged in direct and/or indirect climate lobbying as well as businesses actively considering participation.

2024 OECD Recommendation on Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying and Influence

This standard was created by the OECD to help create a stronger, cleaner, and more fair economy by providing concrete guidance for governments on building or strengthening a coherent, comprehensive, effective, and enforceable system for limiting risks of undue influence and monopoly of influence in public decision-making. It provides a series of recommendations on the disclosure of lobbying and influence activities; contains expanded principles on transparency measures; strengthens measures on conflicts-of-interest; calls for transparency and integrity in companies and not-for-profit organisations when engaging in lobbying and influence activities; and more.

Although intended for the public sector, this standard can help public affairs professionals in the private sector to align their organisation's lobbying practices and principles with recommended, ethical practices.

Climate Action 100+ Resource Hub

This resource hub from InfluenceMap’s Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) initiative can help you better understand corporate climate policy engagement. The site features a series of tools that show which organisations are contributing to - or hindering - climate policy. These include the CA100+ Company Rankings and Industry Association Rankings, with rankings determined by alignment with the Paris Agreement; Corporate Disclosure scorecards, which assesses the accuracy and credibility of corporate sustainability reporting; and Shareholder Resolutions, featuring real world investor briefings created by InfluenceMap to support shareholder voting decisions on corporate climate policy.

This set of tools was designed for investors, but they will be useful to anyone interested in benchmarking and ensuring consistency between their business’ commitments and actions on climate change.

The Erb Principles for Corporate Political Responsibility

This set of principles from the ERB Institute was created to provide you with an actionable, nonpartisan template for responsible corporate engagement in political affairs. The principles cover four topics: legitimacy, accountability, responsibility, and transparency. Foundational responsibilities and discretionary opportunities are outlined for these topics. This guidance will be most applicable to legal and compliance teams, but may also be insightful for sustainability teams seeking to better understand how businesses may be undermining their sustainability efforts through their lobbying.

LobbyMap

LobbyMap, created and maintained by InfluenceMap, is the world's leading database of corporate and industry association lobbying of climate policy around the globe. The database ranks the 1000 companies and 330 industry associations covered in the LobbyMap database and features high-level metrics, profiles, summaries, and access to all the underlying data and analysis. These organisations are scored using InfluenceMap’s “Climate Finance” methodology, which assesses engagement on climate-related financial policy in addition to real economy climate policy.

Blueprint for Responsible Policy Engagement on Climate Change

Despite the clarity and availability of scientific research, policy action on climate change has fallen short of what is needed. This resource from Ceres can help you to establish systems that address climate change as a systemic risk and integrate this understanding into your company's direct and indirect lobbying on climate policies. Designed primarily for the governance and legal departments of companies, this Blueprint builds on existing resources and provides concrete recommendations for 1) assessing the impacts of climate change to your company, 2) systematising decision-making on climate change across the company, and 3) acting to align lobbying with public, science-based climate policies. Many of the guiding principles here can also be applied to other social and environmental issues that impact your company.

Climate Ambition to Advocacy: A framework for responsible policy engagement

This framework by the We Mean Business Coalition aims to help you match your climate policy advocacy efforts with your climate ambition. It explains Responsible Policy Engagement (RPE); identifies the advocacy gap and outlines how you can identify the advocacy gap for your organisation; and highlights the drivers and benefits of RPE. It is also complemented by a data tracker, which illustrates the gap between the advocacy efforts of the world’s largest firms and their SBTi-validated climate targets. The framework is designed for public affairs, legal, and marketing teams, but may be most useful to the sustainability teams and other change agents working to drive change in these departments.

Corporate Political Responsibility Hub

Corporate Political Responsibility (CPR) provides non-partisan best practice for more integrated governance of public affairs, which can help you to navigate the current political landscape in a principled way. The CPR website features a repository of resources, including tools, reports, frameworks, best practices, and other education materials, and their Insights section features original research, analysis, and case studies to help business leaders build capacity, foresee scenarios, and apply CPR. It has also been announced that the beta version of the CPR Governance Review Guide for Managers will be released in mid-June, which will provide a step-by-step process for identifying strengths, areas of exposure, and opportunities to improve public affairs governance. These resources will be particularly beneficial to public affairs, legal, government relations, and sustainability professionals.

Responsible Policy Engagement Analysis 2022

This resource from Ceres was created to provide companies with insights into best practices and top performers for climate advocacy. It benchmarks S&P 100 companies against the expectations laid out in the Ceres Blueprint for Responsible Policy Engagement on Climate Change, and outlines trends and guidance to help you to better assess climate-related business risks; systematise decision-making; advocate in support of IPCC-aligned policy; and engage with trade associations to support said policy. Ceres also released an interactive database to help you to assess and compare companies’ performance on key metrics. 

How Can Companies Use Their Political Influence Responsibly?

This article explains how businesses can engage responsibly in the political sphere and advance sustainability through their political activities. The article asks key questions that can help your company to better use its political clout, and unpacks four principles - accountability, transparency, responsibility, and legitimacy - that can help you to better understand whether (and how) to engage in political influence.

How Business Leaders Can Lobby for Climate Action

This article from NBS can help you to become involved in pro-climate lobbying. It explains what corporate lobbying is, explains the key ways for business leaders to get involved, and provides a 4-step approach to creating a pro-climate lobbying strategy for your business. It also provides examples of ways to get involved in climate advocacy outside of work.

Silent Influence: Are companies failing to govern their climate lobbying?

This study from Danu Insight can help you to understand the state of disclosure and governance around climate-related lobbying. The study examines the public disclosures of 8,500 of the largest listed companies and assesses them using data science and AI models. It reveals that approximately three-quarters of assessed companies (78%) share no public information about their climate lobbying, with only 6% achieving a top score on transparency. This report provides insights that will benefit both senior leaders and sustainability professionals, and will be especially useful for investors.

Recommendation of the Council on Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying and Influence

This Recommendation is the first international standard to address transparency and integrity risks related to lobbying practices. Revised in 2024 to reflect the evolving lobbying and influence landscape, it was developed to help actors in government, business, and civil society reinforce the frameworks for transparency and integrity in policy-making. It recommends the disclosure of lobbying and influence activities conducted on behalf of foreign state interests; the introduction of a regulatory footprint in public decision-making processes; expanded principles on transparency measures for all bodies providing advice to the government; prescriptions for integrity-related measures, such as procedural rules, standards of conduct, and rules on conflicts-of-interest; and more. This resource is a good starting point for better understanding credible measures your organisation can support to enhance the transparency and integrity of lobbying practices.