Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IndianOil) exhibits both positive and negative engagement with science-aligned climate policy. The company’s engagement with climate regulation is limited. Despite overall positive top-line communications, IndianOil takes a mixture of positive and negative positions on the energy transition by advocating for clean technologies such as green hydrogen and decarbonized vehicles, but also stating support for the continued role of oil and gas.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: IndianOil’s top-line communications, although limited, appear broadly supportive of climate policy. For example, former company chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya appeared to support India’s 2070 net zero emissions target in a March 2023 Twitter post. The company also suggested support for India’s commitments under the Paris Agreement in its 2022-23 Sustainability Report, accessed November 2024. IndianOil acknowledges the risk of climate change regulation in its 2022-23 Sustainability Report, without taking a position on the need for such policies.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: IndianOil does not list its position on, or engagement with, any specific climate-related regulations in its 2023-24 Business Responsibility & Sustainability report. The company responded to CDP's Climate Change Information Requests, however the latest responses (2021-2023) do not appear to be public.
Positioning on Energy Transition: IndianOil has a mixture of positive and negative engagement on the energy transition. The company’s 2023-24 Annual Report, published in July 2024, appeared to support India’s Green Hydrogen Mission announced by the government to boost renewable hydrogen production, as well as appearing to support national policies designed to advance the electrification of mobility. In the same report, IndianOil also appears to support a growing role for biofuels in the energy mix, especially in decarbonizing light-duty transport and aviation, although it is unclear if this position is aligned with IPCC timeframes.
However, IndianOil appears to support the continued role of oil and gas in the energy mix. For example, in a January 2024 interview, former chairman Vaidya supported the long-term role of fossil fuels in India. The company also supported the Indian government’s policy to increase the share of gas in the nation’s energy mix, and advocated for investments in fossil gas and oil in its 2022-23 Annual Report, published in July 2023.
Industry Association Governance: IndianOil has disclosed some of its memberships to industry associations through its 2024-25 Business Responsibility & Sustainability Report, accessed December 2024. However, the company does not disclose details on the associations’ positions on climate policy, engagement activities, or IndianOil’s role within the associations or in shaping their positions. The company also does not publish an audit of its alignment with its memberships and industry associations. IndianOil retains membership to Confederation of Indian Industry, which generally undertakes mixed to positive lobbying on climate policy in India, and Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI), which generally advocates for the long-term role of fossil gas in the country’s energy mix.
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.
Additional Note: IndianOil is headquartered in India, 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 IndianOil’s climate policy engagement activities, these scores should be considered provisional at this time.
In addition, IndianOil is a listed company with more than 50% of its shares owned by the government of India. 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 IndianOil's engagement intensity metric.
This summary was last updated in Q3 2025.