Target 17.14: Policy coherence for sustainable development
Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Policy incoherence is often produced by corporate lobbying. The OECD's 2021 report on lobbying, drawing on InfluenceMap, found that corporations and trade associations block or weaken climate policy. The report also found that oil majors invested roughly 1 billion dollars in narrative control and policy influence, and that lobbying transparency has not kept pace. Shareholder proposals on political spending averaged 34.1 percent support in 2022. The 2024 CPA-Zicklin Index shows 394 S&P 500 companies disclosing political spending or restricting at least one category of it. Coherence across ministries and treaties still rests with governments, so owners help at the margin by forcing lobbying alignment.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- OECD Highlights Major Gaps in Lobbying Transparency, InfluenceMap, 2021-05-20
- Shareholder Resolutions in Review: Political Spending, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (ISS Corporate Solutions), 2022-07-09
- 2024 CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (Center for Political Accountability), 2024-11-06
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Coordinates member resolutions and dialogues pressing companies to disclose lobbying spending, to close the gap between stated policy positions and actual lobbying, and to build governance to prevent lobbying abuse, reporting four negotiated transparency agreements in 2023 and majority votes at Cenovus and McDonald's.
Corporate Lobbying, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2025-04
An investor-led disclosure standard, backed by AP7, BNP Paribas, the Church of England Pensions Board, IIGCC, IGCC, InfluenceMap and the LSE Grantham Institute, asking companies to commit publicly to align direct and indirect lobbying with 1.5 degrees, to review and escalate misalignment with trade associations, and to report annually on lobbying activity and trade association payments.
The Global Standard on Responsible Climate Lobbying, Global Standard on Responsible Climate Lobbying
Has supported shareholder partners filing election-spending resolutions since 2004 and since 2022 a Model Code resolution requiring companies to obtain and publish political expenditure reports from trade associations, 527 groups and 501(c)(4) organisations they fund.
Recent Shareholder Engagement, Center for Political Accountability
Publishes Proxy Preview, which reported 77 corporate political influence proposals filed as of 21 February 2025, a 22 percent rise on 2024, and recorded that shareholders have filed over 600 lobbying resolutions in fifteen years producing more than 400 votes and 14 majority votes.
Proxy Preview 2025, As You Sow, Sustainable Investments Institute and Proxy Impact, 2025-04
2 campaigns on record
Report on whether and how the company's lobbying, direct and through its trade associations, aligns with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
With Boston Trust Walden
Result: Sixteen of the 21 proposals were withdrawn in exchange for corporate commitments that met the proposals' requests. Where the Paris alignment proposal reached a vote it was rejected each time: Honeywell, 25 April 2022, 204,987,160 for and 313,950,913 against, about 40 percent; UPS, 5 May 2022, 432,987,745 for and 869,820,738 against, about 33 percent; Alphabet, 1 June 2022, 113,506,023 for and 482,661,112 against, about 19 percent.
Sixteen companies made commitments on climate lobbying alignment in exchange for withdrawal, which is where this campaign's result lies; every proposal that stayed on a ballot was defeated. At FedEx on 19 September 2022 and Tesla on 4 August 2022 no Paris alignment proposal was voted at all, as the announcement had warned might happen; each of those meetings instead voted down a general lobbying disclosure proposal.
Report on how the company's lobbying, direct and through its trade associations, aligns with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Result: Majority votes at all five companies, each certified by the company's own Form 8-K. Norfolk Southern, 13 May 2021: 143,817,090 for and 44,333,194 against, about 76 percent. ExxonMobil, 26 May 2021: 1,752,779,954 for and 992,506,297 against, certified as 63.8 percent. United Airlines Holdings, 26 May 2021: 103,084,540 for and 54,527,783 against, about 65 percent. Delta Air Lines, 17 June 2021: 225,669,077 for and 132,799,058 against, about 63 percent. Phillips 66, 12 May 2021: 195,837,321 for and 117,573,625 against, about 63 percent.
Five majority votes in one season on climate lobbying alignment, an outcome ICCR says could only have been reached with the support of large asset managers, and the base from which the initiative grew to 21 proposals the following year.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.