Are businesses doing enough to lobby for strong climate policies?

We Mean Business and Corporate Leaders Group Europe have published research questioning whether corporate climate commitments match corporate political engagement. The paper examines a specific problem: businesses announce net-zero targets, then lobby against the policies that would make those targets credible.

The disconnect is real. A company can pledge 1.5°C alignment under SBTi frameworks while simultaneously funding trade associations that oppose carbon pricing or renewable energy regulation. That's not strategy–it's theatre.

The research identifies this as a critical governance gap. If your board has signed up to climate ambition, but your government affairs team is working the other way, you're not actually committed. You're managing perception.

We Mean Business argues businesses need to actively lobby for strong climate policy–not just avoid the anti-climate lobby. That's a harder ask than it sounds. It requires board-level clarity on what "net-zero" actually means operationally, and willingness to accept short-term compliance costs.

The policy window is narrowing. As policymakers recalibrate green frameworks, companies that stay silent or hedge their bets will face two problems: regulatory risk if they're caught misaligned, and competitive disadvantage against peers genuinely committed to policy-positive engagement.

The question isn't whether businesses should lobby for climate policy. It's whether they can afford the reputational and operational cost of not doing so–and whether their boards understand the difference between net-zero claims and net-zero behaviour.