Big Tech has 'refused to lift a finger' to push for comprehensive action on climate

Despite having committed to bold corporate climate agendas, tech giants have yet to put their weight behind action, finds report

The world's largest technology companies are largely failing to exert their significant influence to encourage governments to adopt more ambitious climate policies, despite being among the most powerful businesses in the world and having committed to bold corporate climate agendas.

That is the stark conclusion of a new report published Thursday by the London-based think tank InfluenceMap, which details how Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google owner Alphabet dedicate a relatively small fraction of their lobbying efforts to advancing climate-related policy in the US and EU, and are therefore missing a major opportunity to show corporate leadership on climate action.

All five companies have announced bold corporate climate programmes over the last 12 months that set out how they plan to reduce the emissions of their value chains, deliver more sustainable products, curb their energy use, and power their buildings, data centres and fleets with clean energy. Their various goals have been backed by massive new clean tech investment programmes. For example, Amazon has launched a major new Climate Pledge programme that encourages firms to reach net zero emissions by 2040 and has stepped up efforts to switch its massive global fleet to zero emission vehicles. Similarly, Microsoft is pursuing a sweeping plan to achieve negative carbon emissions by 2030 suck all the carbon it has emitted from its operations since its founding by 2050. Meanwhile, a report this week from analyst firm BloombergNEF named Amazon as the world's biggest purchaser of clean power last year, followed closely by Google and Facebook.

The leadership position taken by many of Silicon Valley's most powerful companies has long-fuelled hopes that they could act as a counterweight to the huge lobbying power of carbon intensive industries, which have traditionally sought to block or water down bolder climate policies. These hopes have been further encouraged by the visible role many of the tech sector's leading names have take in green lobby groups, such as the Corporate Leaders Group in Europe and the We're Still In coalition in the US.

However, today's report argues that the leading tech giant's climate lobbying activity remains largely underpowered compared to their other activities. It accuses the firms of a failure to channel a significant portion of their lobbying activity towards climate policy, while continuing to remain members of a number of industry groups that have lobbied against efforts to advance the Paris Agreement.

"This report shows that despite robust top-line climate commitments from Big Tech and the sector's huge economic footprint, these companies appear not to be strategically deploying their significant influence over government policy in support of much-needed climate policy," said InfluenceMap executive director Dylan Tanner. "This represents a lost opportunity for corporate leadership on climate policy."

With all five companies growing in size during the pandemic, the report stresses that tech giants have a responsibility to take a more active role in encouraging policymakers to endorse bold climate policy. "With this unprecedented concentration of economic and financial power comes the ability to influence government policy," the report notes.

Despite representing roughly 25 per cent of the value chain of the S&P 500, just four per cent of the companies' lobbying activities in the US between 2019 and 2020 were focused on climate-related policy at a federal level, the report calculates.

This limited policy lobbying pales in comparison to the huge strategic resources that are poured into opposition to climate policy by oil giants, InfluenceMap warns. Over the same 12-month period ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and ConocoPhillips focused 38 per cent of their federal lobbying activity in the US on climate policies, it states, and while a growing number of oil companies insist they are supportive of the goals of the Paris Agreement they routinely stand accused of lobbying against more ambitious decarbonisation policies.

In Europe, evidence of climate-related lobbying by Big Tech is "similarly scant", according to the report's findings, which state that InfluenceMap's global lobbying system "has not detected significant direct, deep climate policy engagement in the EU" by the firms.

"Big Tech companies are some of the most powerful businesses in the world," said Sheldon Whitehouse, United States Senator for Rhode Island. "They make things happen - when they want things to happen. This report shows how Big Tech has refused to lift a finger to push comprehensive climate action in Congress."

InfluenceMap notes that where technology giants' do engage with climate policy they tend to focus on technical rules that will enable corporate clean energy procurement drives and meet other internal climate goals, but overlook issues that would accelerate an economy-wide drive towards net zero emissions, such as renewables targets, emissions trading, and regulation to promote other low-carbon technologies and phase down high-carbon activities.

Bill Weihl, founder of NGO ClimateVoice, who was formerly director of sustainability at Facebook and green energy czar at Google, urged tech companies to step up their lobbying and "use their enormous influence" to advance climate policies. "This report provides clear, convincing proof points that despite their pro-climate philosophy, Big Tech is not advocating for the bold climate policy we need," he said.

All five companies at the heart of the new report were approached by BusinessGreen for comment, but had not responded at the time of going to press.

However, there are signs that the sector could be about to step up its climate lobbying activity. Microsoft promised in January 2020 to use its "voice and advocacy supporting public policy that will accelerate carbon reduction and removal opportunities". Similarly, when Apple announced a new net zero target last summer, it said it would engage with "governments, businesses, NGOs, and consumers around the world to support policies that strengthen environmental protections and the transition to clean energy, which the company sees as a vital component of global climate action". Meanwhile, a number of leading firms have distanced themselves from those trade bodies and think tanks with a track record of obstructing climate policies.

Moreover, the pace and scale of the Biden administration's new climate policy programme - which has reportedly taken oil industry lobbyists by surprise - looks set to spark a shift in corporate lobbying priorities on both sides of the Atlantic. The hope remains that Silicon Valley could yet emerge as a highly visible and supremely powerful ally in the lobbying wars that will inevitably inform the pace and ambition of new climate policies. But as today's report highlights, it would be a case of better late than never.

This article was first published on BusinessGreen