Target 12.a: Scientific capacity in developing countries
Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
UNCTAD's Technology and Innovation Report 2023 frames the capacity gap as one of national strategy and international support. It warns that unless developing countries act, most value from a green and frontier technology market projected to exceed 9.5 trillion dollars by 2030 will escape them. Corporate technology transfer is nonetheless a real and documented channel. Holcim's 14Trees venture with the UK development finance institution CDC produces low-cost, low-carbon Durabric building materials in Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. It shows that listed firms can build sustainable-production capability where they operate. If every listed manufacturer and materials producer made local technology transfer, licensing and training a core objective in developing countries, the technical side of this target would advance. The research institutions, education systems and international assistance at the target's center are funded by governments and donors. We found no shareholder resolution or corporate lobbying record bearing on them. Owners therefore help at the margin.
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
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Filed shareholder resolutions at Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson asking each to study the feasibility of transferring manufacturing technology and know-how so production could be expanded in lower-income countries.
2 campaigns on record
Study the feasibility of transferring vaccine technology and know-how so that production can be scaled up and access improved around the world.
Result: 24 percent of the nominal vote, and 29 percent of the independent vote excluding the 17 percent held by directors
Study the feasibility of transferring vaccine technology and know-how so that production can be scaled up and access improved around the world.
Result: 27 percent support
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.