Methodology Overview and Why Investors Should Care

Danu Insight analysed 8,500 firms and found fewer than 1 in 4 show any signs of climate lobbying oversight. This is not just a disclosure gap - it’s a climate risk hiding in plain sight.

 Here’s what the graph shows and why it matters for policy, investors, and net zero:

✅ Score 4 – Comprehensive: A public lobbying alignment report that thoroughly addresses both direct and indirect lobbying efforts, with named oversight (e.g., CEO/Board involvement).

🟢 Score 3 – Strong - Demonstrates effective management of both internal and external lobbying activities; however, it lacks a public report or an internal audit.

🟡 Score 2 – Moderate - Contains some climate lobbying policy or identifies a responsible manager, but the details are insufficient or limited in scope.

🟠 Score 1 – Limited - Features a generic lobbying policy that fails to address climate issues.

🔴 Score 0 – Silent - No information available regarding any policies or actions related to climate lobbying.

Why investors and companies should care about lobbying governance?

• Governance gap: Lobbying has a significant impact on the rules that govern markets; however, most companies operate without any oversight regarding this influence.

• Unaccountable influence: Most companies cannot map their lobbying footprint. Trade associations often take aggressive anti-climate stances, funded by companies that claim to support net zero.

• You can’t defend what you can’t see: If companies do not govern or disclose their lobbying, investors may be holding climate obstruction in their ESG portfolios and not know it.

• This should be a management fix: This could be a high-systemic-impact, minimal-effort intervention. Political alignment is not a complex engineering overhaul—it’s a governance fix ESG teams can implement.

  
  

Should companies be allowed to claim net-zero alignment while ignoring, or even participating directly or indirectly in actions that oppose climate action?

Why lobbying governance matters to climate change?

• Policy is our most powerful decarbonisation tool.

• Better governance can fix this disconnect by aligning public affairs teams with ESG teams and the overall values of the company.

• Trade associations do most of the lobbying against climate policies.

Companies often do not know who they fund, let alone what positions those groups are taking.

That has to change.

Our new database on climate lobbying governance and report is available.