NAT.A04.EB Lobbying and Advocacy Assessment Framework
This metric was designed by The World Benchmarking Alliance, more information can be found here. Sources and Alignments for each indicator can be found here as well as the scoring guidelines here
The World Benchmarking Alliance's Nature Benchmark measures and ranks the world's most influential companies on their efforts to protect our environment and its biodiversity.
This metric relates to the Indicator: The company advocates nature-positive policies and regulations and discloses any misalignment with its lobbying activities as well as the measures it takes to address misalignment.
Rationale: Both individually and through trade associations, companies should advocate nature-positive policies and regulations. Companies should not finance trade associations that undermine nature-positive policies, including regarding the climate. Companies should conduct regular due diligence on the trade associations they support, and fully disclose the names of the associations, the alignment of their lobbying activities with policies and regulations that support nature-positive outcomes and their action plans to correct any misalignment.
WBA analysed all publicly available group-level disclosure in English on the applicable group website, which was predominantly annual reports and sustainability reports. Draft assessments were then sent to each company inviting them to provide feedback. This feedback could include additional publicly available group disclosure published. These were then reviewed and finalised. Final assessments were then shared with each company before being published online.
For this metric the company must state a concrete framework that it uses to assess alignment with nature-positive policies. For issues related to climate a valid framework could be the Paris Agreement. For issues related to biodiversity, valid frameworks include policies and regulations that address any of the drivers of biodiversity loss, or those intended to protect specific species such as the Endangered species Act in the US or the Birds and Habitats Directives in the EU.