Corporate lobbying is reshaping the human rights laws that civil society has fought for. Here is why CSOs can no longer afford to ignore it and how Social LobbyMap can help.
The stakes have never been higher
Civil society organisations (CSOs) are the lifeblood of democratic accountability. From labour rights to environmental protections, CSOs have spent decades advocating for stronger legal frameworks that protect people and the planet. Yet one of the most powerful forces shaping those frameworks, corporate lobbying, has remained largely invisible. That is changing rapidly.
The story of the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) illustrates what is at stake with sharp clarity. Agreed in 2024 after years of negotiation, the CSDDD was hailed as a landmark: large companies across the entirety of the EU would face legally binding obligations to identify and address human rights and environmental abuses throughout their global supply chains, extending and harmonising protections that had previously existed only in some member states. This legal development was significant for workers, communities, and rightsholders who would have had their right to access remediation in European courts protected under law.
Within a year, that ambition had been dramatically scaled back. Following intense corporate lobbying — exposed by a SOMO investigation — and significant geopolitical pressure, including a joint open letter from the US Energy Secretary and Qatar’s Energy Minister to EU Heads of State demanding the CSDDD be repealed or gutted, the European Commission reopened the directive. By the time member states gave their final approval in February 2026, the directive’s scope had been narrowed by roughly 70%, climate transition requirements had been stripped out, and civil liability provisions that would have enabled victims of corporate abuse to seek justice had been removed.
“It is deeply alarming to witness how European governments and elected representatives have capitulated to foreign political interference and corporate lobbying.” — European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ), December 2025
This was not an accident. Investigative research by the Dutch NGO SOMO revealed the inner workings of a secretive ‘Competitiveness Roundtable’ composed of eleven largely US-based multinationals, including ExxonMobil, Chevron and Koch Inc. Meeting at least 17 times between March and August 2025, the group pursued a deliberate ‘divide and conquer’ strategy: targeting individual EU governments, sidelining ‘stubborn’ Commission departments, and working to align the European People’s Party with far-right groups. Many of these companies had never publicly criticised the CSDDD, their opposition was coordinated, covert, highly effective and well-resourced with significant sums reportedly spent on commissioned think tank papers and other influence activities designed to shape the political narrative.
For CSOs, the lesson is stark: you cannot only advocate for better laws. You must also watch, and counter, the forces working to undermine them.
The lobbying gap and why it matters to CSOs
CSOs have deep expertise in the issues they champion, whether that is forced labour in supply chains, land rights in mining communities, or discrimination in the workplace. They know where change is needed and are trusted voices in policy debates. But lobbying transparency has historically been a blind spot.
Most CSOs are not tracking which companies are lobbying against the very laws they are fighting for. They cannot see the gap between what a company says publicly about its commitment to human rights and what its government relations teams are pressing for behind closed doors. This information asymmetry gives corporate actors an enormous structural advantage.
There is a particular irony here that many CSOs will recognise. A common tactic in human rights advocacy is to gather corporate signatories to joint letters supporting stronger legislation building a coalition of business voices that lend credibility to the campaign. But Social LobbyMap data reveals a troubling pattern: the same companies that sign those letters may simultaneously be members of trade associations quietly lobbying in the opposite direction. The public commitment and the private pressure can point in entirely different directions.
Social LobbyMap was built to close that gap. Using a rigorous methodology grounded in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and ILO Core Labour Standards, Social LobbyMap analyses publicly available data, consultation responses, company disclosures, and regulatory filings, to assess whether companies’ lobbying activities actually support or undermine the human rights positions they claim to hold.
The findings are often striking. Social LobbyMap’s 2025 analysis of CSDDD lobbying, covering 88 companies and trade associations, now expanded to 189 entities, found significant divergence between what individual companies stated publicly and what trade associations were pressing for on their behalf. Social LobbyMap scores both companies and their trade associations, enabling a direct comparison: a company may score positively on its own public statements while belonging to associations with strongly oppositional scores — a gap that is invisible without this kind of analysis Many associations pushed hard for exclusions and caveats, even where their member companies had expressed support for stronger due diligence.
Spotlight: Social LobbyMap’s mining sector research
Corporate lobbying on human rights is not confined to headline EU directives. It plays out sector by sector, in the specific legislative and regulatory arenas that shape conditions for workers and communities on the ground.
In February 2026, Social LobbyMap published a comprehensive three-part research series on metals and mining sector lobbying of the CSDDD. The research examined 24 companies engaged by PRI Advance (the global investor stewardship initiative), the overall lobbying trends of the mining sector more broadly, and the coordination mechanisms among trade associations. Mining is a sector where the stakes could not be higher: communities near extraction sites, often in the Global South, face land displacement, environmental degradation, and dangerous working conditions. And yet, as Social LobbyMap’s research reveals, these companies have almost entirely outsourced their lobbying to trade associations with very little transparency about whether those associations’ positions reflect corporate values.
The findings are striking. Only 1 of the 24 companies engaged through the PRI Advance initiative (ArcelorMittal) lobbied the CSDDD directly. There were a remaining 14 companies engaged under the PRI initiative that are members of trade associations that lobbied on the CSDDD. These companies relied entirely on those associations, with 71% failing to disclose any alignment assessment of their trade associations’ lobbying positions at all. Of those that did conduct assessments, most focused only on climate — meaning 92% had not assessed alignment specifically on social and human rights lobbying. Research also revealed that 11 of 13 entities responding to the second CSDDD consultation phase showed evidence of coordinated lobbying in two distinct networks, with German employer federations playing a particularly prominent role in oppositional positions. For CSOs working with companies in the mining sector whether on Indigenous rights, supply chain due diligence, or labour standards, this research provides a powerful tool: evidence of exactly which associations are lobbying against stronger protections, and how to raise that directly with companies that claim to support them. The full research is available at sociallobbymap.org/mining-sector-lobbying-of-the-csddd.
A case study in impact: how transparency exposed the CSDDD lobbying campaign
The SOMO investigation into the Competitiveness Roundtable is a powerful illustration of what lobbying transparency makes possible — even when it comes too late to stop a specific vote. SOMO published the leaked documents on 3 December 2025; the EU reached political agreement on the Omnibus just six days later, and parliament voted in favour on 16 December. Civil society organisations, including ECCJ, Friends of the Earth Europe, and 138 others, organised rapidly — but the timeline left little room to act. What the research did achieve, however, was to permanently change the terms of debate: the nature of the corporate campaign became undeniable and on record, providing ammunition for the next phase of the fight.
While the final law was still significantly weakened, civil society pressure preserved important elements including a risk-based approach to due diligence across the full chain of activities, rather than limiting obligations to direct (Tier 1) suppliers only. Crucially, the fight has now moved to the national transposition phase, where member states have until July 2028 to incorporate the directive into domestic law. This is where CSOs, equipped with data on which companies lobbied for which outcomes can push governments to restore and strengthen the protections stripped away at EU level.
This is exactly the kind of counter-lobbying intelligence that Social LobbyMap is designed to provide: knowing not just what the law says, but who shaped it, and how to engage at the next legislative moment.
What CSOs can do with this data
Lobbying transparency data is not just for researchers. It has direct, practical applications for CSO advocacy:
- Holding companies to account: When a company’s lobbying directly contradicts its stated commitment to human rights, CSOs can raise this in shareholder engagement, public communications, and direct dialogue creating reputational pressure that has real force.
- Timing advocacy strategically: Social LobbyMap tracks counter-lobbying windows — the moments in legislative processes when CSO intervention is most likely to make a difference. Given that many CSOs operate with limited capacity, this intelligence allows them to focus their efforts where they matter most.
- Building coalitions: The CSDDD experience shows the power of coordinated civil society action. When multiple organisations are working from the same evidence base, they can present a unified, credible front to legislators. Social LobbyMap’s research is potentially a focal point for CSOs to come together and collaborate across sectors and geographies
- Informing research priorities: CSOs working on specific regions or sectors can flag legislative developments and on-the-ground cases to Social LobbyMap turning the relationship into a two-way exchange that makes both the research and the advocacy more effective.
The next chapter: national transposition and the road ahead
The conclusion of the Omnibus I process is not the end of the story, it is the beginning of a new and arguably more important phase. With the revised CSDDD now in force, the battleground shifts to national capitals, where member states must transpose the directive into domestic law by July 2028. Each national context will bring its own lobbying dynamics, its own pressure points, and its own opportunities for civil society to push for stronger protections.
At the same time, new legislative processes are already underway. Social LobbyMap will continue to track corporate lobbying as it evolves ensuring that CSOs have the evidence they need to engage effectively.
“Behind every policy decision, there are actors shaping outcomes. Social LobbyMap reveals who they are.”
If you are a CSO working on human rights, labour standards, supply chain transparency, or corporate accountability, lobbying data is not a niche concern, it is central to the work. The forces trying to water down the laws your communities depend on are organised, well-resourced, and increasingly sophisticated. To counter them effectively, civil society needs to be informed, coordinated, and strategic.
Social LobbyMap exists to make that possible. We invite you to engage with our research, to use the data, help shape our research priorities, and ensure that the fight for stronger human rights protections is informed by the clearest possible picture of who is working to undermine them.
Join our upcoming webinar on the 1st of April 2026 for a guided walkthrough of the Social LobbyMap database, our key findings, and how to integrate lobbying intelligence into your advocacy. Register here.