Global Compact International Yearbook Ausgabe 2013

Agenda
Stakeholder Management
Responsible Lobbying
Lobbyists paying elected representatives to place questions in the UK parliament.
Arms manufacturers giving South African officials BMWs in exchange for armaments
contracts. Smoke-filled back rooms featuring stuffed brown envelopes. No wonder
lobbying has a bad name. But these are not images of lobbying: They depict corruption,
albeit in a policymaking setting. These actions are morally suspect and usually illegal.
They also contravene the UN Global Compact: Principle 10 requires the combating of
corruption. In fact, lobbying is far more often about committee meetings, reports, and
other unspectacular activities. Lobbying can be understood as the focused provision
of relevant information, with the intention of influencing public policy or process.
Corporate lobbying is not just important for companies; it helps create better public
policies, and can therefore have real societal value, despite its bad press.
By Dr. Stephanos Anastasiadis and Dr. Sigrun M. Wagner
Even so, there is much scope for criticizing corporate lobbying.
In our research, we have found that the lobbied (usually
civil servants and elected representatives) often perceive
companies to exaggerate, bully, and even lie outright. In their
2005 report, Towards Responsible Lobbying, the UNGC and
AccountAbility argue that lobbying needs to be reformed, and
set out proposals for responsible lobbying practices. Simon
Zadek, then AccountAbility CEO, rightly said: “Lobbying [was]
one of the few business practices to have escaped close scrutiny
in recent years.” David Vogel later wrote about responsible
lobbying (in the HBR List 2008), arguing that companies
should lobby for more sustainable policies. The 2005 report
acknowledged that demands for complete transparency are
both unrealistic and may in fact be counterproductive. It
acknowledged that more rules – such as compulsory registration
– do not prevent unethical lobbying. And it also
called for UNGC participants – more than 2,200 companies
and NGOs at the time – to bring lobbying practices in line
with the Ten Principles of the UNGC.
Nearly a decade later, not much has changed. The world has
moved on in other ways, though. Recent scandals and crises
have shone a light on corporate actions. At the time of writing,
the horsemeat scandal in Europe and a factory collapse
in Bangladesh were leading to a greater focus on supply
chains. Corporate tax has become a hot topic. We have heard
repeated calls for government intervention. Before the crisis,
governments had been in retreat. As Colin Crouch argued
in 2011, this is a long-term trend. In the short-term, though,
the significance of governmental policies and regulations has
become clearer. This has thrown lobbying into sharper relief:
Societal skepticism of lobbying has become more pronounced,
as “dodgy” lobbying practices are seldom out of the news. At
least one socially responsible investment label has recently
started taking lobbying into account in their company ratings.
Interestingly, the UNGC implicitly promotes responsible lobbying.
Principle 6, for example, is about promoting elimination
of workplace discrimination. A company that takes its
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