The Good Lobby Tracker is the first initiative aimed at comprehensively assessing the major corporate political responsibility initiatives, from sustainability frameworks to ESG ratings, to enhance their transparency, accountability and action-ability. It is designed to help business practitioners, investors, civil society advocates, regulators and other stakeholders select the best methods and standards when assessing the corporate political footprint of companies. It also provides the opportunity for other, more resource-constrained groups in civil society, to lobby in the public interest on all manner of issues.

After screening all existing initiatives in an attempt at identifying best practices, the Tracker rates each initiative against an idealized corporate political responsibility standard. The latter consists of a checklist, inspired by the scope/strengths/methods of each of the frameworks reviewed, and enriched by additional criteria developed by The Good Lobby that further contribute to raise the standards for corporate political engagement and improve the quality of the policy process. The Tracker aspires to list all the qualities a regulation on corporate political transparency and accountability should have.

The majority of sustainability ratings agencies largely ignore one of the most important data dimensions when assessing corporate sustainability, the role of corporate political activities in shaping regulation and public policy. Given their limited scope, little methodological sophistication and low granularity, none of the examined standards and initiatives appears capable of contributing to their declared aim of enhancing the transparency and accountability of corporate political activities. This is true for a variety of reasons, ranging from largely proprietary assessment methodologies to their varying approaches to assessing and investigating corporate conduct. In addition, corporate political activities continue to be considered as ancillary issues, rather than as key variables in determining corporate impact on environmental, social and governance themes.

Second, corporate political activities are not defined consistently across ESG ratings that are applied to publicly listed companies, with only a few initiatives striving to capture subtler forms of influence such as indirect lobbying, be it by trade associations or other third party actors including think tanks, philanthropies or academic stakeholders. Given the scale of corporate political activities across markets, one may reasonably expect the adoption of shared definitions on corporate political activities to enable the production of more comparable, transparent information. This will be required for all stakeholders to be able to properly assess risks and opportunities linked to different forms of corporate lobbying and political influence. More consistent definitions would enable standard setters, and the users of these standards and associated data, to communicate clear expectations to companies and other stakeholders.

Standards for corporate political contributions are not systematically assessing direct or indirect financial and in-kind contributions to political parties and elected representatives. A number of the aspirational voluntary standards do address the need for more consistent disclosure of this information, with a focus on minimising revolving door activity.

In addition, none of the existing initiatives enable companies to declare a corporate policy that prohibits any form of political donation, potentially encouraging the continuation of problematic corporate contributions as a norm in many countries.

When it comes to the standards applied to corporate lobbying and other advocacy activities, there is great variation in how the Tracker assesses these activities. Standards and initiatives covered by the Tracker often fail to assess the impact of company membership in trade associations, think tanks and other powerful influence channels.

Yet, given the impact of lobbying by third party groups on core business issues, ranging from tax treatment to listing regulations, one might expect more consistent assessment of these indirect influence channels. As the influence of think tanks, trade associations and in-kind sponsorship of academic research ramps up, more consistent and granular scrutiny within this area is essential.

Business associations are a primary vehicle for corporate lobbying. They feature among the top lobbying spenders or in so called corporatist political systems such as Germany they are by far the main conduit for business influence in the first place. As standards improve coverage of third-party lobbying and influence, it is key for firms to explain coherently how third party partners and their positions are aligned with the member firm’s stated lobbying principles and practices.

Yet only a few of the initiatives in the Tracker strive to capture the full scope of third-party influence to consider membership and use of charities, foundations, PACs, and other arm’s-length political fundraising organisations. Moreover, at present none of the assessed standards consider escalation mechanisms for companies to re-evaluate and terminate relationships with third party lobbying partners that may engage in misconduct.

Standards assessed in the Tracker do not currently have a consistent approach to assessing corporate policies on lobbying and advocacy conduct. Beyond assessing company policies and procedures linked to political activities and influence strategy, there is a need to consider how companies

assess their impact on public policy outcomes. This includes the assessment of financial and in-kind political contributions on policy outcomes that impact on company operations and financial health.

Of the 24 standards assessed in the Tracker, only one addresses proactive efforts by companies to embrace sustainable lobbying practices as inferred from adherence to self-imposed codes of conduct and positive impact goals – such as requiring a commitment to support democratic process, respect for planetary boundaries, and efforts to equalize access to power. More of the standards should

consistently consider negative lobbying alongside companies’ actions to support more resilient democratic processes, and take other voluntary actions that support economic resilience within planetary boundaries. More of the standards could address the role of positive lobbying and company action to create or participate in coalitions that have the specific purpose of lobbying in support of public interest goals.

Beyond third party influence, standards need to improve the assessment of employee participation in corporate political activities. This would mean standards should consider revolving door indicators at different levels of a business, and clear communication on which corporate employees run the political influence and lobbying strategy and associated

spending controls, and how these matters are considered at the board-level. Related to more transparent and effective assessment of employee participation in political influence and lobbying activities, the standards should also consider internal reporting on lobbying activities, and if there are consistent policies on this.