Stockholm (NordSIP) – Non-profit think tank InfluenceMap provides fresh insight into corporate climate policy engagement in its new Global Leaders in Climate Policy Engagement report, published on 24 September 2024. While much of InfluenceMap’s research shines a light on the efforts of the fossil fuel industry to delay climate action via its LobbyMap platform, this report identifies those larger companies that should be recognised for their positive engagement with policymakers.
The report presents 40 companies that qualify as global leaders in climate policy engagement according to InfluenceMap’s assessment criteria. 23 of these are based in Europe, with 9 and 8 headquartered in North America and the Asia Pacific region respectively. InfluenceMap also selected several of the peer group for special recognition in their geographic region according to the following three categories: Science-Aligned Advocacy, Strategic Engagement, and Addressing Indirect Influence.
InfluenceMap has typically focused on companies in developed markets large enough to feature on the Forbes 2000 list. However, given the importance of lower and middle-income countries to the climate agenda it has sought to extend its analysis to smaller companies that fail to meet the minimum size criterion but are nevertheless leading climate advocacy in their respective markets. These include energy and automotive firms such as ReNew Power Private Ltd in India and LONGi Green Energy Technology from China, as well as smaller companies in developed markets like Denmark’s Danfoss and Japan’s Toda Corporation.
Commenting on the publication of the report Edward Collins, Director of LobbyMap at InfluenceMap said: “It is encouraging to see a number of the world’s largest and most well-known companies demonstrating significant positive climate policy engagement and raising the bar for their industry peers. By introducing leadership categories, this year’s Global Leaders Report hopes to highlight the many avenues that companies must consider in order to align their actions with science and to reiterate that progress in one single area is not enough to drive the systemic change we need in order to achieve 1.5C.”
The three companies identified as regional leaders in the Science-Aligned Advocacy category are General Mills, DSM-Firmenich, and the SoftBank Group. According to InfluenceMap, these firms demonstrate ambitious climate strategies aligned with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidance, along with consistently high engagement scores at the organisational level.
The regional leaders in terms of Strategic Engagement are IKEA, Trane Technologies and Japan’s Ricoh. The companies in this category stand out by their activity levels in terms of positive climate engagement. InfluenceMap points out that fossil fuel companies typically have very high strategic engagement, but this is dedicated to negative advocacy hence the important role of these firms as a countervailing force.
In the third category, Unilever and Apple are named as leaders in Addressing Indirect Influence. No companies from the Asia Pacific region were considered to have reached a high enough standard in this respect. The leaders in this category are hailed for their efforts to address the negative lobbying of industry associations.
Few multinational corporations are deemed to have impeccable climate advocacy credentials. The InfluenceMap report acknowledges that leadership in one area does not necessarily indicate best practice across the board. For example, the presence of some of the world largest producers of single-use plastic waste such as Coca Cola, Nestlé, and Danone raises the question of sustainability advocacy being matched by corporate strategy. Nevertheless, InfluenceMap’s analysis will help inform institutional investors’ engagement activities and the think-tank’s extensive range of content is free to access and use on an open-source basis.