Two very different news stories caught my eye at the end of May. The initial article in Triple Pundit, praised ten companies for the excellence of their sustainability reporting. The other, in the Guardian, reported on a Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) study of 28 publicly traded companies in the S&P 500 that work both sides of the room to influence the debate on climate change. The study found that some businesses claim to care about climate action while quietly supporting groups working to discredit climate science.

​General Electric (GE) was honored for its sustainability reporting in Triple Pundit but cited by UCS along with 11 other large companies for their contradictory actions on climate change.

GE has funded climate-supporting groups such as Brookings Institution and Worldwatch Institute while also providing funds to organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and Competitive Enterprise Institute, both “known to misrepresent established climate science.” UCS found that GE‘s corporate actions were evenly split between pro-climate and anti-climate actions.

It took a concerted effort by UCS to unravel the conflicting alliances of GE and the other eleven companies named in their report. While some of this contradictory support is hidden from view, it doesn’t all happen behind the scenes. For example, A 2009 DTE Energy shareholder resolution implored the company to reconcile its contradictory positions with its publicly stated, forward-looking positions on climate change. At Exxon Mobile, the UCS report notes that the company “continues to fund lobbying groups that undermine climate science despite a public pledge to cut support for climate denial.”

While the hypocrisy highlighted in the UCS study is deeply troubling, I held GE to an even higher standard based on its position as a sustainability leader. The Triple Pundit article and earlier posts rightly highlight GE’s green innovations and its Ecomagination initiative. GE’s 2007-2008 Citizenship Report won the Ceres ACCA Sustainability Reporting Award and the company has won a host of other awards for corporate responsibility, as well. I’ve been inspired by the good work GE and other companies have done and, frankly, I’m feeling duped right now.

For a company of GE’s size and stature, these are not minor inconsistencies. Of the $5 million it spent on political contributions and the almost $190 million that went to lobbying, UCS determined that GE had a 1 to 1.4 anti-climate/pro-climate ratio. That’s a lot of money going both ways and the problem is not unique to GE. Caterpillar, for example, proclaims its commitment to sustainability and to climate change strategies while serving on the boards of two outspokenly anti-climate science trade groups (the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturing) and funding two think tanks that misrepresent climate science (the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation).

There are important caveats and explanations of methodology that are available in the UCS report and I’ll mention a key one here – that companies support organizations for a variety of reasons and climate change may be just one of a number of issues some industry associations pursue. Still, there is enough meat in the report to make its main point several times over.

So, how do we know when a company is genuinely concerned about climate action? Few firms are going to take the approach Seventh Generation did in its 2007 Corporate Consciousness Report when it included a photograph of then CEO Jeffrey Hollender getting arrested at a Greenpeace demonstration for climate change. It was pretty easy to understand where the company stood.

I’m not naïve enough to think that one exposé will change things overnight. But here are some very obvious suggestions:

• Companies should ensure that their positions align with established science
• Public-facing statements should be consistent with company actions
• Disclosure of memberships should work both ways: trade and other groups should list members and companies should disclose affiliations
• Any lobbying should be done transparently and in a manner consistent with sustainability commitments and strategies

Sounds completely reasonable, doesn’t it? What will it take to make this more commonplace?