My expertise is working with companies to match their political activity with ambitious climate action. I spent the last 4 years at the World Resources Institute and just started my own consulting outfit. Welcome to Connect the Dots, a monthly newsletter from ClimateVoice!
This issue is all about trade associations—what they are, what they do, why they do it, and how many of the biggest of these groups have historically opposed climate action.
Action Items
Do you know which trade associations your company is a member of? Go online and see if you can find out.
Note – not all companies make this information available (pssssst this is bad practice!). But some places you might find it are in special lobbying or political engagement reports, public policy or policy position webpages, and/or under Corporate Social Responsibility reporting. Try Googling “[your company] and trade association memberships” to start.
For examples of what these may look like, see Walmart’s and Ford’s.
The Big Picture
*Note, discussion of trade associations in this section is mostly from the U.S. perspective. However, there is significant overlap with the behavior of trade associations in other countries.*
What Are Trade Associations?
At a basic level, a trade association is an organization comprised of (and funded by) a group of businesses to carry out certain mutually beneficial things. This often includes things like networking, lobbying, political donations, education, and technical advice.
There are tens of thousands of trade associations in the United States alone, ranging from small, very specific groups–like the American Pie Council–to much larger, multi-industry groups. Other names for trade associations include: industry groups/associations, trade groups, business associations, or sector associations.
Some of the largest and most influential of these organizations in the U.S. are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Chamber), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and the Business Roundtable (BRT).
How Do Trade Associations Influence Policy Issues?
Similar to companies, trade associations have numerous levers to influence policy making. These include:
- Directly lobbying policy makers through meetings, open letters, testifying before Congress, etc.
- Donating money to candidates’ political campaigns
- Bringing legal challenges against policies they oppose (or legally intervening in ones they support)
- Shaping public narrative through advertising and other forms of communication
For example, the U.S. Chamber uses a scorecard to track how members of Congress vote on key issues throughout the year. The more the politician’s voting record aligns with the Chamber’s preferred positions, the more campaign money they receive from the Chamber. As we’ll highlight below, this often works against climate action.
Big Trade Associations Have a Track Record of Being Anti-Climate Action
From commissioning the study that led to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, to all-out lobbying against the Inflation Reduction Act, to millions spent on misleading advertising, the largest trade associations in America have a long history of opposing climate action.
Predictably, trade groups representing the fossil fuel industry and other heavy emitters spend heavily against climate policy. But, more surprisingly, so do most multi-sector groups – especially the largest and most influential ones. Last month we explained that these multi-industry groups often adopt “lowest common denominator” positions. This is a way of saying that they take the position of those industries with the most to lose (or who are willing to pay the most). When heavy emitting companies belong to the same trade groups as major retailers, tech companies, food and beverage brands, etc., it is the position of the heavy emitters that gets represented on climate policies – because they are most affected.
The group InfluenceMap, which tracks the climate lobbying of companies and trade groups, gives failing grades to the U.S. Chamber (E-), NAM (E), and BRT (D+).
State Farm and Allstate, which both recently stopped insuring homeowners in the state of California over climate-driven wildfire concerns, are members of the board of the U.S. Chamber. So are Comcast, Delta Airlines, Facebook, FedEx, Hilton, Microsoft, and Pfizer, among others.
Dr. Robert Brulle (who ClimateVoice just interviewed) and Christian Downie have a great study showing the sheer scale of anti-climate lobbying coming from trade associations.
One of the most astounding findings from their recent report is that: Trade groups opposing climate action outspent their pro-climate action counterparts $2 billion to $75.4 million between 2008 to 2018. This is a ratio of 27 to 1.
Remember last month when we talked about the idea of an ideological “climate war”? The anti-climate trade groups are showing up with 27x the ammunition as the pro-climate side. Yikes.
What Does Leadership Look Like?
Let’s be clear. We know that climate is not the only important issue that companies face (though it is a huge, often overlooked one). Companies belong to trade associations for all sorts of reasons, which is part of why this is such a tough negative influence to address. A trade group might be acting against a company’s interests on climate change at the same time that it’s representing them perfectly on topics like taxes, trade, and immigration.
So what’s the answer to fixing this? What should a pro-climate company do?
Let’s first look at what’s NOT the answer – doing nothing.
That is what Sideliner companies (those who are generally unengaged on climate policy) do. Either they aren’t aware of the problem (like when the people responsible for climate action and the people responsible for government affairs sit in different departments and don’t communicate), or they are aware but decide to take no or little action to fix it.
Leadership means doing the hard work to effect change.
This can look a bit different for different companies, depending on their unique circumstances. There are reasons why remaining in a trade group may seem like the right choice, including the argument that it’s easier to effect change from within an organization than outside it. Certain members of the U.S. Chamber have been attempting this for years now, and unfortunately have little to show for their efforts. Some companies that have already tried this “change from within” approach may find that it’s time to leave.
There are different steps companies can take when they find a trade association is undermining their interests on climate policy. These include:
- Bring concerns to trade association staff and lobby for new, pro-climate action positions
- Join internal working groups dedicated to climate policy to influence policy positions
- Renegotiate your membership contract to ensure none of the company’s dues go toward political donations
- Conduct and publish a trade association review/audit to evaluate the degree to which these groups are undermining the company’s climate goals (see best practice for these audits here)
- Make public statements to distinguish when the association’s position does not represent that of the company’s
- Lobby consistently and forcefully for climate action to counter trade groups’ negative input
- Leave the association
^ Not everything on this list will have the same impact. The climate crisis is URGENT, so it is NOT ENOUGH for a company to do one of these (like joining an internal working group) and consider the problem solved. If conversations, audits, renegotiations, etc. are not leading to actual change, then things need to escalate. Quickly. Not after five more years of ‘business as usual.’
Outside advocacy groups are increasingly arguing that after years of attempting to change the climate stance of major trade associations, there is no time left to work from the inside and leaving is the only real option left. Regardless of whether a company stays or leaves, however, it is clear that they should be advocating vigorously for climate policy to help counter and reverse the years of obstruction by the Chamber and others.
The Nitty Gritty
The History of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Climate Change
You may have noticed that we referenced the U.S. Chamber quite a bit in this issue. That’s because, as the largest and most influential multi-sector trade association in the world, they are a huge obstacle to climate action.
Though this is by far a non-exhaustive list, let’s take a look at some of the (relatively recent) things the U.S. Chamber has done to fight climate action.
2014 – Organized a network of lobbyists to dismantle President Obama’s proposed climate change regulations (which they started before said regulations had even been developed)
2015 – Filed a lawsuit challenging the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era initiative that would have set carbon pollution limits on U.S. power plants (this lawsuit eventually morphed into the West Virginia v EPA Supreme Court Case, with the court’s conservative justices ruling in favor of WV)
2017 – One of the Chamber’s stated policy priorities for the year was to “Oppose efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through existing environmental statutes, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act”2022 – Lobbied against the historic $369 billion IRA climate bill and opposed EPA methane standards
2022 – Lobbied against the historic $369 billion IRA climate bill and opposed EPA methane standards
Though the group now claims to support climate action, the evidence doesn’t back that up. InfluenceMap, who we mentioned earlier, released a briefing in February 2023 with some damning findings. You can see from the graphic that despite representing a wide range of companies, the U.S. Chamber’s climate policy positions were most closely aligned with the MOST oppositional oil and gas companies.
The report shows that, in fact, “across six major [U.S.] federal climate policies introduced in 2022, the Chamber’s positions were the same as those of the American Petroleum Institute (API), the country’s predominant fossil fuel industry group.”
Image © InfluenceMap, The U.S. Chamber’s Climate Policy Engagement, February 2023. Used with permission. |
For a Deeper Dive
Brulle and Downie’s Trade Association Study
Earlier we talked about some findings from Robert Brulle and Christian Downie’s recent report: “Following the money: trade associations, political activity and climate change.”
This groundbreaking report focuses on the role of trade associations and political influence on climate change. The authors looked at 87 trade groups in the U.S. that are known to have engaged on climate change. The graph shows the stark difference in expenditures between traditionally anti-climate groups (gas/oil, multisector groups, transportation, coal) and the traditionally pro-climate ones (renewable energy).
The graph covers spending on ALL issues, not just climate, as currently the data cannot be broken down that way. Still, it’s a powerful picture of where the money is coming from.
Coming soon...
Have a specific question about Responsible Corporate Advocacy that you’d like us to address? Shoot your questions to us with subject line "Connect the Dots."