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.
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Climate Lobbying Overview: Gazprom appears to be generally unsupportive of ambitious climate action, but shows limited engagement with specific climate-related regulations. Gazprom does not appear to fully support the transition of the energy mix, strongly advocating for a major role for fossil gas in the long-term.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: Gazprom has limited, but broadly negative, top-line messaging on climate policy. In its 2021 Sustainability Policy, Gazprom stated that its sustainable development goals are aligned with the Paris Agreement, but does not clearly state support for the climate deal. The company also does not appear to have a clear position on the need to reduce global emissions or the need for government regulation to respond to climate change. However, previous evidence suggests a lack of support for drastic action; for example, in December 2018, the Gazprom Journal stated that the EU’s plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 was “science fiction”.
Notably, in September 2021, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller gave a speech in which he appeared to be ambiguous on the science of climate change, stating “No matter if one believes in global warming or global cooling, we can see that over the past few years – we are talking about not some decades but the last three years specifically – seasonal fluctuations are growing in the regions to which we supply our gas.”. Similarly, in April 2020, Oleg Aksyutin, Gazprom’s Deputy Chairman, gave an interview in which he stated that “no-one knows the actual reasons behind the global climate change” and “none of the climate models existing today can be considered definitive from a scientific point of view”.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: Gazprom appears to have mostly negative engagement with climate-related regulations. In its 2021 CDP response, Gazprom appeared to oppose a draft Federal law for the state regulation of greenhouse gas emission and absorption that would have established targets for reduced direct emissions in the Russian Federation, instead advocating for emissions intensity targets. Further, Gazprom does not support the use of quotas or levies in methane regulation in the EU. In its consultation responses in August 2020 and January 2021, it appears to state that while it supports mandatory standards for measurement, reporting and verification of methane emissions, it is “important to avoid measures that may lead to artificial market distortions with respect to natural gas as an energy source” such as quotas or charges. Furthermore, in the past, Gazprom has not appeared to support forms of carbon pricing, such as a carbon tax, stating in a January 2018 journal, that such measures would “deal a powerful blow to the Russian economy”. Similarly, Gazprom appears to hold a mixed position towards the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, stating in a February 2019 journal that, “the European market on the one hand, is turning green, on the other - it is becoming more expensive”.
Positioning on Energy Transition: Gazprom does not appear to fully support the transition of the energy mix, and its engagement in this area is primarily focused on supporting the long-term use of fossil gas. The company strongly advocates for switching from coal to gas in the energy mix, stating in its 2020 Sustainability Report, published in 2021, that the use of natural gas is an effective, simple and rational way to preserve a “favorable environment”. Additionally, a Gazprom representative was quoted in Reuters in January 2021 stating that “gas is fully compatible with the most ambitious climate goals”. Gazprom has also advocated for a role for hydrogen produced using fossil gas (without reference to the need for CCS) in submission to the EU hydrogen strategy in June 2020, claiming that hydrogen produced from natural gas via methane pyrolysis is comparable to the green hydrogen production technologies in terms of carbon intensity due to the “minimal carbon footprint of Russian gas supplies”. Furthermore, Gazprom appears to strongly support the use of gas as a motor fuel over the electrification of transport, advocating for its use in its 2020 Environment Report. In its 2019 Sustainability Report, it stated support for measures such as subsidies for the construction of gas refilling facilities and tax incentives for fossil gas vehicles.
Industry Association Governance: In its 2020 Sustainability Report, published in 2021, Gazprom disclosed a number of industry associations of which it is a member. However, the company does not have a clearly identifiable, dedicated disclosure of its indirect climate-related lobbying activities, nor has it disclosed on how it engages with its associations on their climate policy positions. Gazprom has not disclosed a review of its alignment with any industry associations on climate change policy. Nevertheless, Gazprom is a member of Gas Infrastructure Europe which also typically supports the long-term role for fossil gas in the energy mix.
Additional Note: Gazprom is headquartered in Russia, where InfluenceMap’s LobbyMap platform can currently only make a provisional assessment of corporate climate policy engagement, due to limited capability to access publicly available data on this issue. As it is possible that InfluenceMap is not yet able to fully capture evidence of Gazprom's climate policy engagement activities, these scores should be considered provisional at this time.
In addition, Gazprom is a listed company with more than 50% of its shares owned by the government of Russia. State-owned enterprises likely retain channels of direct and private engagement with government officials that InfluenceMap is unable to assess, and therefore are not represented in Gazprom's engagement intensity metric.