Statement of Resource Person, Dylan Tanner
6 November 2018
representatives; research institutions including academia; and the world’s
media.
3) InfluenceMap’s Methodology
1. InfluenceMap’s methodology for assessing corporate influence over policy
was developed in collaboration with the Union of Concerned Scientists and
is guided by an independent advisory board with representatives from the
Union of Concerned Scientists, the Institutional Investors Group on Climate
Change (IIGCC), CDP and others.
2. Our content is relied upon by over 100 major institutional investors,
including Legal and General Investment Management and its Future World
Fund. InfluenceMap’s metrics and analysis on corporate influence over
climate policy is in use by the Climate Action 100+ initiative,1 involving 310
investors with more than USD $32 trillion in assets under management
targeting over 150 of the world’s largest industrial corporations on climate
change governance – including many of the “Carbon Majors” in this Petition.
3. InfluenceMap’s work on climate policy influence has been cited in over
1,000 media articles, including articles in The Economist, Reuters, CNN
Money, Bloomberg Business, the Sydney Herald, South China Morning Post
and many more. Full details are available on the homepage:
https://influencemap.org. InfluenceMap’s analysis of the anti-climate
lobbying spending by the oil majors was also used as evidence on the floor
of the US Senate by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in 2016.2
4. InfluenceMap’s methodology ensures the assessment of corporate influence
over policy is done in an objective and consistent manner, allowing the
resulting analysis and metrics to be relied on to compare corporate behavior.
The definition of “policy influence” is derived from the 2013 UN Guide for
Responsible Corporate Engagement in Climate Policy.3 All company or
trade association positions are measured against a benchmark of “Parisaligned” climate and energy policy put forward by relevant regulatory
bodies, including the EC Directorate-General for Climate Action (EC DG
Clima) and national climate regulators.
5. All company and trade association assessments are based on thorough
analysis of their public disclosures, including legislation consultations,
organization websites, financial filings and transcripts of CEO and senior
management messaging. For any company or trade association, hundreds of
pieces of evidence might be assessed and scored. These are aggregated with
1
climateaction100.org, accessed October 2018
2
US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse testifies in front of the US Senate, video published on InfluenceMap’s YouTube channel, May 2016
3
Responsible Corporate Engagement in Climate Policy, UNGlobalCompact.org, published 2013, last updated December 2015
2