Target 12.7: Sustainable public procurement
Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Public procurement is government conduct, roughly 13 percent of GDP in OECD countries, so agencies set the criteria and place the orders. Corporate suppliers shape what sustainable procurement can buy, and corporate political influence has demonstrably fought the criteria themselves. The Federal Acquisition Regulation Council proposed requiring major federal contractors to disclose greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risk. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed comments urging the Council to "abandon this flawed rule entirely," and the Council withdrew the proposal in January 2025 without finalizing it. Owners voting their values can remove that organized opposition and align supplier lobbying with the standards governments are trying to set. Governments must still adopt and enforce the criteria, so owners remove a necessary obstacle while others must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
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
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce Comments on Federal Acquisition Regulation: Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate-Related Financial Risk, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2023-02-15
- Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Proposed Rule, Office of the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, 2022-11
- Federal Acquisition Regulation: Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate-Related Financial Risk (Proposed Rule; Withdrawal), Federal Register, 2025-01-13
- Public procurement performance: A framework for measuring efficiency, compliance and strategic goals, OECD, 2023-08-07
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Coordinates the Climate Action 100+ investor campaign asking companies to report whether their direct and trade association lobbying aligns with the Paris Agreement.
Coordinates member proposals asking large companies to disclose lobbying expenditures including payments to trade associations.
3 campaigns on record
Disclose lobbying expenditures, including payments to the trade associations that lobby on the company's behalf.
Result: Challenged by the companies at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and BlackRock; put to a vote at Visa.
Report on how the company's direct and trade association lobbying aligns with the Paris Agreement.
Result: 65.4 percent in favour.
Report on how the company's direct and indirect lobbying through trade associations aligns with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Result: 76.4 percent in favour.
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.