Social LobbyMap tracks corporate influence on human rights legislations.

Corporate Lobbying has a significant influence on social policy outcomes – it’s crucial to ensure this influence is aligned with human rights, equity and responsible business conduct. Tools for monitoring corporate lobbying provide important insight into this practice. 

FAQs

Social LobbyMap

About Social LobbyMap

Social LobbyMap aims to increase transparency and analysis around corporate lobbying on human rights legislations. We do this by providing data and analysis on how companies and trade associations are lobbying around particular legislations.

Our reports into corporate lobbying and its impacts on human rights legislation are below

Learn More About Our Social LobbyMap Methodology

Social LobbyMap Advisory Committee

  • Alberto Alemanno, The Good Lobby
    Andrea Shemberg, Business and Human Rights Advisor
    Edward Collins, InfluenceMap
    Johannes Blankenbach, Business and Human Rights Centre
    Nabylah Abo Dehman, PRI
    Richard Howitt (Chair), EIRIS Foundation Trustee
 
Social LobbyMap Methodology Committee
  • Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, University of Essex
    Chara de Lacey, Transparency International
    Rebecca Vaughan, InfluenceMap
    Signe Andreasen Lysgaard, The Danish Institute for Human Rights

The Foundation

About The EIRIS Foundation

The EIRIS Foundation is a research, advice and advocacy charity that pioneers the next steps for sustainable finance. Our vision is a financial system that works for people and planet. We have over 40 years’ experience of providing free and objective information on sustainable finance and corporate activity to other charities and the public.

Our mission is to use research, analysis and influence to identify gaps, barriers, opportunities and enablers so that we can help organizations and individuals maximise their contribution to the responsible business and investment agenda.

Learn More

Our Vision For The Future

We envision a world where corporate lobbying drives positive social change, fully aligned with human rights and environmental principles. In this future, influence is transparent, backdoor lobbying is exposed, and companies advocate openly for laws that protect people and planet.

Social LobbyMap FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Social LobbyMap?

Social LobbyMap is a data platform that assesses corporate lobbying on human rights and labour standards against a range of recognised international standards. The project aims to provide independent research, assessment and scoring on social policy engagement from two types of entities: companies and trade associations.

It’s designed for investors, civil society organisations, researchers, journalists, and policymakers — anyone interested in understanding how corporate influence shapes regulation and rights.

Limiting corporate accountability to companies’ own operations and value chains neglects the significant influence companies have on regulation and enforcement. InfluenceMap’s LobbyMap in the climate space has shown the importance of providing systematic analysis and calling out cases where companies or their trade associations may be lobbying out of step with their own commitments or global goals such as the Paris Agreement.

Mapping and assessing lobbying on social issues can replicate that effect in relation to human rights. This could drive effective human rights due diligence (HRDD) rollout or uphold new and established labour standards. The impacts sought would be enabling specific interventions by corporate stakeholders in favour of particular social goals and general encouragement and reward for better behaviour from within companies.

Social LobbyMap comes at a moment when many countries are regulating their Human Rights Due Diligence processes, including in regional negotiations. In this atmosphere, lobbying around human rights will be increasingly prevalent.

Social LobbyMap’s initial research covers sectors identified through research and stakeholder consultation as being relevant drivers of corporate political influence. We further chose to cover the companies engaged through the PRI Advance Initiative. We identified the focus sectors as:

  • Companies engaged through the PRI Advance Initiative who are in the renewable and mining sectors.
  • Entities in the Finance, Apparel, and Food and Beverage sector
  • Trade associations, both cross sectoral and in the sectors mentioned above.

However, in order to fully capture corporate positions and influence on specific policy debates, we may also add entities that are outside these sectors where their involvement is relevant to the policy debate being assessed. Current legislation captured by the research are due diligence or labour rights legislation e.g., the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) or the European Union Forced Labour Regulation (EU FLR). This list is not exhaustive, and the aim of our research is to expand the types of legislations covered in the future.

The analysis will explore publicly available data regarding corporate political engagement, such as consultation responses and company disclosures.

The research focuses on the following responses to specific legislative efforts, namely:

  • Consultation responses: Legislative bodies often put out calls for input from the general public. This is a way of making the legislative process more inclusive and participatory and hear the opinions of a variety of stakeholders. This can take many forms, such as open calls for input on a topic, or more structured/specific questions regarding certain policy proposals. Consultations most often focus on whether or not to introduce a legislation and what a legislation should look like. It may also only focus on how to implement certain policy measures (Example: the US’ Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act). Consultation responses may be publicly available or made public through freedom of information requests.
  • Meetings, email exchanges, and other direct engagement with policy makers on specific legislative efforts. Meeting notes or content may be obtained through freedom of information requests or via media.
  • Indirect engagement with policy makers, e.g., open letters to policy makers or other public statements of opinions on specific legislative efforts. These may stem from industry association websites.
  • Corporate websites – This includes websites, subsidiary (>49% ownership) websites, CSR reports, annual reports, briefing papers, position papers, joint position papers/jointly signed open letters.
  • Media articles and other external reports – Media sources to use are respectable/recognized global or regional press outlets and business press

We have detailed systems in place. Firstly, we invite companies to comment before we release the results. After publication, companies can appeal. Appeals can be brought to our attention via this email address: social.lobbymap@eirisfoundation.org. All appeals will be reviewed by the team and can be escalated to our methodology committee. 

The EIRIS Foundation – a research, advice and advocacy charity with over 40 years of experience in sustainable finance. Their vision is a financial system that works for people and planet. Find out more at eirisfoundation.org

Please contact us by emailing social.lobbymap@eirisfoundation.org

You can find our most recent reports here.

To stay up to date with our latest reports, check out our Latest News page or get in touch for more information.