We have expanded the list of climate policies we assess company engagement with to incorporate land-use related policy, referring to legislative or regulatory measures to enhance and protect ecosystems and land where carbon is being stored. Assessments under this category are currently underweighted in terms of their contribution to the overall company metrics. This weighting will be progressively increased over the next 6 months.
We adjusted the terminology used to describe the queries running down the left-hand side of our scoring matrix and added additional explanatory text to the info-boxes. This has no impact on the scores and methodology. It has been done following user feedback to improve clarity.
In this section, we depict graphically the relationships the corporation has with trade associations, federations, advocacy groups and other third parties who may be acting on their behalf to influence climate change policy. Each of the columns above represents one relationship the corporation appears to have with such a third party. In these columns, the top, dark section represents the strength of the relationship the corporation has with the influencer. For example if a corporation's senior executive also held a key role in the trade association, we would deem this to be a strong relationship and it would be on the far left of the chart above, with the weaker ones to the right. Click on these grey shaded upper sections for details of these relationships. The middle section contains a link to the organization score details of the influencer concerned, so you can see the details of its climate change policy influence. Click on the middle sections for for details of the trade associations. The lower section contains the organization score of that influencer, the lower the more negatively it is influencing climate policy.
Climate Lobbying Overview: Bunge appears to have limited engagement with climate change policy between 2020-2022. Bunge has mixed engagement on biofuels, calling for the use of biofuels and bioelectricity to be used where possible, but simultaneously expressing a preference for market forces over regulations.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: Bunge has limited top-line communication on climate change policy. In its 2022 Sustainability Report, released in May 2022, Bunge partially acknowledged the science of climate change. In the company’s sustainability statement released in 2019, CEO Greg Heckman also accepted climate science, highlighting the risks associated with rapid changes in climate for the agricultural industry and acknowledging the industry’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. In November 2021, Bunge signed a joint statement committing to creating a roadmap for transitioning the supply chains of large agricultural companies to be in line with 1.5°C pathways by COP27. While Bunge made a statement in support of regulations to decarbonize shipping in September 2021, the company does not appear to explicitly support the broader need for government regulation to respond to climate change. Bunge also does not appear to explicitly support the Paris Agreement.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: Bunge appears to have limited engagement with specific climate-related policies and does not appear to provide a dedicated disclosure on its climate positioning or lobbying on its corporate website as of August 2022. While Bunge responded to CDP’s 2021 request for climate-related information, it did not disclose its position on any climate-related regulations apart from biofuels (see below).
Positioning on Energy Transition: Bunge appears to have limited engagement with the transition of the energy mix. In its 2021 CDP disclosure, Bunge stated that it engages with policymakers around the issue of biofuels, declaring a preference for market forces to promote biofuels, and calling for the use of biofuels and bioelectricity to be encouraged where possible.
Industry Association Governance: Bunge appears to disclose its memberships to industry associations in both in its 2022 Sustainability Report and 2021 CDP response, although both disclosures lack detail on its alignment on policy positions as well as the company’s engagement within the associations. Similarly, Bunge has not published a full audit disclosure of its alignment with its industry associations. InfluenceMap did not find any evidence of memberships to climate-active industry associations in our database.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q4 2022.