New Report Reveals Top Five U.S. Tech Firms Have “Net Zero” Impact On Historic Climate Policy Progress

“Big Oil is Upping its Game on Capitol Hill While Big Tech Takes a Pass“

San Francisco, CA — According to an updated report from the think tank InfluenceMap, the pro-climate pledges of the top five tech firms (Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft) are still not backed up by strategic advocacy. In addition, the update finds, thecompanies’ direct influence is being overshadowed by the highly strategic anti-climate advocacy of their trade associations.

“With potentially historic climate legislation being debated in Congress, you might expect to seeBig Tech step up its influencing activity,” said InfluenceMap Executive Director Dylan Tanner. “Instead, only 6 percent of their collective activity thus far in 2021 has been focused on climate,virtually unchanged from our 4 percent finding in the January 2021 report on last year’s activity. Three Big Tech companies (Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft) actually saw their influencing intensity scores drop.”

The report is an update to InfluenceMap’s January 2021 study, Big Tech and Climate Policy, the first in-depth examination of the tech giants’ lobbying efforts on the climate issue.

“Amid a fierce battle for the budget reconciliation bill — a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the destructive threat of climate change — Big Tech’s impact on climate advocacy is ‘net zero’,” said former Google and Facebook sustainability executive Bill Weihl, who started ClimateVoice to urge companies to advocate for climate. “This is a historic turning point, and we are calling on Tech employees to urge their companies and CEOs to stand up for climate by publicly endorsing the budget reconciliation bill.”

A notable increase in activity on the part of Big Oil sharply contrasts with Tech’s continued inaction and points to a widening gap, according to the InfluenceMap update. “Over 50 percent of Big Oil’s lobbying activity was climate-focused,” said Kendra Haven, the study’s author, “a significant increase from 38 percent in the original report.”
“Big Oil is upping its game on Capitol HIll while Big Tech takes a pass,” notes Weihl. “We are actively working to get Big Tech into the climate policy fight, even in the 11th hour.” On September 15, Weihl sent a personal appeal to Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, urging the company to “step out in front of the whole Tech sector” on this issue.

ClimateVoice is a project of the Tides Center, a non-profit organization.