The A-List of Climate Policy Engagement

While the list includes established corporate sustainability leaders like IKEA, GSK and Unilever it also includes six European utilities EDP, EnBW, ENEL, SSE, National Grid and Iberdrola that between them operate significant renewable capacity in Europe and large slices of North and South American renewable power. They have a strategic interest to see a clear policy pipeline globally favoring low carbon energy.

Technology-orientated companies Apple, Amazon, and Google also make the list. Like the utilities, they have a strategic interest to see low carbon energy consistently and efficiently available globally. Microsoft narrowly misses the list due to its particularly strong network of powerful cross-sector trade groups opposing climate policy, like the US Chamber of Commerce, which Apple has publicly denounced on climate.

One factor in some of the A-List companies is strong CEO involvement in messaging on support for detailed climate policies - Unilever's Paul Polman, Apple's Tim Cook and DSM's Feike Sijbesma stand out.

Other companies who appear to have integrated the energy transition into their products and processes that make the A-List are chemicals firms AkzoNobel and Royal DSM (less reliance on fossil fuel energy for their chemicals processes) and industrials ABB and Siemens (renewable technology and industrial efficiency systems are a growing part of their product portfolio).

A number of companies may break into the A-List in the future given their current trajectory. Utilities Edison International and EDF are highly supportive of climate policy but in a sector with many supportive players. US blue-chip names Walmart, Johnson & Johnson and Pepsico are likewise supportive but not as strategically active as their A-List counterparts. Energy and energy-intensive companies Suncor, Statoil, ENI, LafargeHolcim, and BHP are sector leaders and strategically active but not yet supportive enough of ambitious climate policy aligned with the Paris Agreement.