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 aligns with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Result: Sixteen of the 21 proposals were withdrawn in exchange for company commitments; five went to a vote. The Honeywell proposal, voted 25 April 2022, failed.
Sixteen companies made commitments on climate lobbying alignment in exchange for withdrawal.
Report on how the company's direct and indirect lobbying aligns with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Result: Majority votes at all five companies.
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.