Climate Policy Engagement and CA100+ Target Companies

The 2023 Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) Net Zero Company Benchmark assessed 150 of the world's largest emitters on their net-zero transition. InfluenceMap provided data for the Climate Policy Engagement Alignment assessment using three distinct indicators. Through these indicators, InfluenceMap assesses the alignment of a company’s real-world climate policy engagement with science-aligned benchmarks to achieve 1.5°C warming, as well as the quality and accuracy of corporate disclosures related to climate policy engagement.

Overall, CA100+ target companies performed poorly across all three indicators. Only 4% of CA100+ companies achieved scores indicating alignment with science-based policy pathways for delivering the 1.5°C warming goal of the Paris Agreement on Indicator 1, Real-World Climate Policy Engagement. None of the companies fully met investor expectations for either their climate policy engagement disclosure or review processes (Indicators 2 and 3).

Many focus companies continue to obstruct or undermine ambitious climate policy in their real-world climate policy engagement, either directly or via industry association memberships (Indicator 1). 29% of companies demonstrate climate policy engagement misaligned with science-based pathways to limit warming to 1.5°C.

Despite poor performance, longer-term trends of progress are evident, with best-practice leaders emerging. For example, the majority of target companies now sit in the “partially aligned” category on Indicator 1, Real-World Climate Policy Engagement. In addition, under Indicator 3, Corporate Climate Policy Engagement Review and Misalignment Management, there has been a steady increase in companies submitting reviews, providing a critical foundation for investor engagement. Since the time of the October 2023 Benchmark, Unilever has demonstrated leading practice on Indicator 3, becoming the first company to publish a review that broadly meets InfluenceMap’s assessment criteria.

While there has been an increase in the number of companies reporting on and reviewing their climate policy engagement activities, the majority of these disclosures do not correctly identify climate advocacy that is misaligned with science-based pathways for delivering the goals of the Paris Agreement (Indicators 2 and 3). Most focus companies do not publish a review of their corporate climate policy engagement, and those that do often fail to meet standards put forward by investors under the Global Standard on Responsible Climate Lobbying (Indicator 3).

European utility companies perform best across all three indicators. Enel, SSE, and Iberdrola rank the highest for their real-world climate policy engagement, having shown consistent support for a range of ambitious climate policies in the EU, while Enel had the highest rated climate policy engagement review of all companies assessed under the October 2023 Benchmark.

Conversely, companies from fossil fuel sectors continue to drive many of the negative scores under Indicator 1, Real-World Climate Policy Engagement, showing consistent opposition to policies to enable the transition of the energy mix. As such, while several sectors are now evolving their climate policy engagement approach because of shareholder pressure, companies from the fossil fuel value chain have remained more resistant to change.

As we enter proxy season, investors have increased opportunity to push CA100+ companies to improve their climate policy engagement and related disclosures to ensure closer alignment with pathways to limit warming to 1.5°C. Shareholder resolutions allow investors to use their formal rights as owners to publicly escalate salient matters through direct interaction with a company’s board. InfluenceMap’s analysis suggests that such escalation strategies might be warranted to address persistent poor performance across certain focus companies.