Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
Corporate Engagement with Climate Policy in 2016
An InfluenceMap/WMB Forum, London March 10th
About the event
Aligning the global economy with a low carbon future remains a key priority on the road to
sustainability. InfluenceMap has identified a post COP21 "Paris effect", with a tipping point being
reached and passed in regards to explicit support of progressive climate related legislation among
large corporations. However, more work needs to be done and we need to build on this momentum.
In particular, we need to ensure that the key trade associations influencing climate policy globally are
aligned with the positive support emerging from corporations. This can only be achieved as a
collaborative effort involving businesses, investors and NGOs working towards a common goal.
This event will gather some of the world’s most progressive thinkers on corporate climate policy
engagement to discuss ways to catalyse meaningful collaborative action.
The meeting will be informal and to encourage openness will adhere to Chatham House Rules. There
will be no media or publicity resulting from the meeting by the conveners or others unless the group
decides otherwise.
Logistics and participants
The event will begin at 10:00 am and run through till 17:00 on March 10th 2016 with lunch and
refreshments provided. The location will be at 10 Carlton House Terrace, St. James's, London SW1Y
5AH, located near St James Park, central London. There will be informal social drinks/dinner nearby,
attendance very much at your convenience. This will be at Davy's at St James, Crown Passage, Pall
Mall, London, SW1Y 6QY. Drinks (1st round is on the conveners of the meeting!) from 17:30 with
dinner at around 18:30,likely around £40 per head.
Contact point for logistics is Catherine Stockwell, InfluenceMap, email
2
Confirmed participants so far include:
Organization Participant
B Team Ruth Jones, Project Manager Cambridge Institute for Sustainability
Leadership Eliot Whittington, Deputy Director
CDP Paul Dickinson, Executive Chairman
ECF Tom Fern, Strategic Communications Manager Joel Kenrick, Senior Associate, Finance and Economics
InfluenceMap Thomas O'Neill, Dylan Tanner Jericho Chambers Jules Peck, Founding Partner
Kingfisher Dax Lovegrove, Director of Sustainability & Innovation
KR Foundation Brian Valbjørn Sørensen COO & Program Director
Overseas Development Institute Shelagh Whitley, Research Fellow ShareAction Clare Hierons, Chief Operating Officer Transparency International UK Alice Shone, Project Officer 350.org Nicolò Wojewoda, Europe Team Leader
UN PRI Fiona Reynolds, Managing Director Paul Chandler, Environmental Issues Manager
Unilever Thomas Lingard, VP Global Policy and Advocacy
United Nations Global Compact Heidi Huusko, Senior Manager, Environment and Climate
PSI, University of Westminster Ben Fagan-Watson, Research Fellow Tom Watson, Research Associate
We Mean Business Nigel Topping, CEO
WRI Kevin Moss, Global Director, Business Center Eliot Metzger, Senior Associate, Business Center
How the day will flow This will be an all day event held in a grand central London conference room on March 10th in the
vicinity of St James Park. The focus will be on galvanizing the highly committed and experienced
participants anew around the topic of positive corporate engagement with climate policy. The style of
the day will be group and break out discussions rather than presentations. An approximate agenda of
the day is as follows:
09:30 - 10:00 Arrival and coffee
10:00 - 11:00 Roundtable: Brief introductions from the convenors (10 minutes each from WMB and
InfluenceMap) followed by 3 minutes from each participant.
11:00 - 12:30
First break out-group (4 groups) to discuss suggested themes + feedback to group
n Trade association issues, including climate policy alignment
n Disclosure of lobbying by both corporations and trade associations
3
n What constitutes supportive engagement with climate policy
n How to deal with powerful fossil fuel lobbying forces
12:30 - 13:30 buffet style lunch
13:30 - 15:00 Second break-out group session to hone in on promising tactics and ideas leading
to collaborative change.
15:00 - 15:30 coffee break and one-on-one discussions
15:30 - 17:00 A moderated group discussion to determine outcomes and next steps.
Objectives
The convenors recognise the wealth of experience and expertise that will be gathered in the room on
this subject and do not want to predetermine detailed objectives. Rather we see our role as providing
facilitation via the collaborative network of WMB and systematic analysis of current corporate
engagement on climate outlined by InfluenceMap. There are a number of angles via which the positive role of business can be deployed. Two specific ideas that could be discussed include:
n Trade associations: We refer to the prominent part played by trade associations in the influence of policy. We envisage a "Gold Standard" for climate policy engagement among trade
associations, with some third party assessment, which the trade association sector would aspire
to, enabled and encouraged by their corporate stakeholders. In our analysis (see below - page
8) the CBI has shown leadership on climate policy and along with the International Chamber of
Commerce has moved up in our rankings recently. Conversely, Business Europe, CEFIC and
the US Chamber of Commerce remain largely opposed to ambitious climate regulations. Can
these and/or others be engaged with and encouraged as a tactic?
n Disclosure: there are a number of disclosure channels on lobbying out there (European Transparency Register, CDP, GRI). Can these be improved and enhanced for climate policy
(e.g. the incorporation of a scoring or third-party assessment mechanism)?
There are clearly many other ideas and it is the objective of the day to isolate and plan the most
effective tactics to effect positive change.
4
Some additional ideas to consider
On direct corporate engagement with climate policy
n How could supportive companies be encouraged to be more proactive? (e.g. from the
technology, healthcare, retail, financial, media sectors) - they may be supportive, but it is not a
pressing priority.
n Should companies stay out of policy engagement altogether, whether supportive or not?
n Political capital: CEOs have immense sway over direction of policy. There are increasing
incidences of this being deployed in direct support of climate policy - by Apple, Unilever, Virgin
Group etc. Can this be amplified and coordinated?
n In some cases, part of the corporate portfolio will be disadvantaged by strong climate policy
while other parts benefit (e.g. a utility with both coal and renewable generation).
On trade associations
n Are the members with the most to lose the most active on climate committees?
n Is the departure of a member due to disagreement on climate (and/or other issues) effective for
bigger change? What scope do companies have to change their associations from within?
n Would a Trade Association Code of Conduct on Climate Policy help? e.g: UK - Trade
Association Forum's Best Practice Guide for Trade Associations, OECD Forum on Transparency
and Integrity in Lobbying - these have no climate aspect however.
n Renewable energy specific trade associations have emerged to counter the voice of the fossil
fuel lobby with regards to regulations. The Advanced Energy Economy 1is a prime example
(Apple, Microsoft, GE, renewables companies are members). How can their influence be
maximized and examples replicated?
On the role of investors
n What is the role of investors on this issue?
n How can they engage with companies on their climate lobbying activities?
n Could they use their (substantial) voice directly to policy makers for stronger climate policy?
(e.g. the IIGCC wrote to EU policy makers late last year urging stricter automotive CO2 testing).
1 AEE was invited to this event, was interested but their SF location made it impractical. They will be included in any follow on activity.
5
Annex: A Summary of Corporate Engagement with Climate Policy The COP21 agreement inked in Paris was a triumph and a strong signal that both state and non-state
actors are serious about limiting global warming to 2 C or less. Within this context, the Executive
Secretary of the UNFCCC has described national climate legislation as an "absolutely critical,
essential, linchpin between action at the national level and international agreements."
While many parts of the business community may share this view, many do not, and this has been
reflected in the difficulties of successfully implementing some of the seminal climate-motivated
regulatory strands of our time. The slow evolution of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and
emerging evidence of comprehensive capture by the automotive industry of the EU emissions testing
procedures attest to this. The implementation the US Federal Government's key climate regulation,
the Clean Power Plan, faces a state-by-state battle in 2016 and beyond as the fossil fuel industry
seeks to delay the process.
Corporate obstruction of climate regulations therefore appears to be alive and well in 2016. Tactics
have shifted, however, from the climate denial and deception tactics the NY Attorney General is
investigating ExxonMobil deployed following the Kyoto Treaty to the more subtle and systematic
delaying and watering down of these and other key regulatory strands.
What does climate policy influence look like in 2016?
Today the key influence corporations have over the low carbon regulatory process is their acceptance
of its inevitability while wanting to control the schedule and details of the process. Our data indicates
that most leading companies now publically present themselves as supporting progressive climate
policy and a strong global treaty. But within these statements of high level policy support our
research indicates a subtle and systematic process of influence through a variety of channels that
seeks to control the pace and detailed implementation of this low carbon regulatory process.
To track this process, InfluenceMap devised and implemented an equally systematic methodology,
with our system looking closely at legislative consultations, advertising, social media, legally required
disclosures, CEO messaging and media reports as well as the official corporate websites. It also
maps out relationships with thirty key trade associations from around the world resulting in a
"relationship score" as well as the company's own score.
We based our method on the 2013 Guide to Responsible Engagement with Climate Policy which
indicates companies may engage with policy through a variety of disclosures, messaging and
relationships with third parties like trade associations, advocacy groups and federations. Moreover,
our metrics are currently being studied by a range of investors including Norway's Government
Pension Fund in relation to new 2016 investment criteria which allow for exclusion of companies
6
based on climate policy lobbying. We have opened our methodology to community review and are
forming a "Scoring Board" with representatives from PRI, CDSB and Carbon Tracker.
Our database and ranking system with 20,000 pieces of evidence on companies and climate policy is
publicly available online, http://www.influencemap.org.
How do the companies score?
We placed the manner in which companies are engaging with climate policy into four quadrants as
illustrated below:
n True leaders: are both involved and supportive of progressive climate policy. Unilever leads as the most involved company in our survey and one of the most supportive. Others in this group
are utilities National Grid and Iberdrola and electric vehicle company Tesla whose business
models clearly benefit from stronger, faster climate regulations.
n Silent leaders: are in the lower right quadrant that is crowded with companies from technology, telecoms, healthcare and consumer goods, all sectors which have no allegiance to fossil fuels
but for whom strong support of climate regulations may not be a business priority. They exhibit
support in some areas (e.g. Vodafone and Cisco Systems calling for strong GHG emissions
targets) but do not appear to be consistently offering support for climate legislation.
n Occasional laggards: are in the lower left and are characterised by companies neither benefiting nor losing out as a result of progressive climate regulations but some aspect of their
business activities lends itself to obstructing climate policy. Media giants Comcast and 21st
Century Fox propagate climate sceptic programming on their news channels while Japanese
trading houses Mitsubishi and Mitsui are active in coal (a small part of their vast empires) which
is reflected in their messaging to the Japanese government.
n Active laggards: are the fossil fuel companies and those highly dependent on such fuels for their business. It is likely their businesses will need to radically change in the wake of highly
progressive climate regulations and this is reflected in their active and obstructive engagement.
ExxonMobil and Koch Industries are prominent among this group.
7
Increasin
g involvem
ent in clim
ate po
licy
A similar analysis may be done of the key trade associations (all data taken from our rankings as with
the companies).
True leaders Active laggards
Occasional laggards Silent leaders
Increasing support for climate policy
8
Increasin
g involvem
ent in clim
ate po
licy
Through looking at these grids, it is clear that to achieve consistent, positive support by business for
climate legislation, the organizations may migrate to the upper right of the above graph, as indicated
by the blue U-shaped arrow below.
True leaders Active laggards
Silent leaders
+ many more
we did not score
Increasing support for climate policy
