Sign up to access all our data and the evidence and analysis underlying our overall scores. Once you've created an account, we'll get in touch with further details:
Sign Up
| Overall Assessment |
Comment |
Score |
| Limited |
Gilead Sciences provides only rudimentary insight into its climate-related lobbying. The company notes that "Gilead and its employees [are] engaging with policymakers" and that it "participates in the public policy process through its involvement with trade associations," but it stops short of naming the government bodies or jurisdictions it approaches, leaving the channels and targets of any influence largely undefined. Nowhere does Gilead identify a specific climate policy, bill, or regulation it has sought to shape, nor does it explain what legislative or regulatory changes it hopes to achieve. The disclosure therefore offers just a general acknowledgement of engagement while omitting the essential details needed to understand which climate measures it addresses, how it seeks to influence them, and to what end.
|
1
|
| Overall Assessment |
Comment |
Score |
| Strong |
Gilead discloses a well-defined structure for overseeing and aligning its policy advocacy, with climate considerations explicitly folded into this process. The Board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee “reviews all of the company’s political expenditures and confirms that all political expenditures are consistent with the company’s policies on a periodic basis,” and also “reviews all payments to trade associations,” demonstrating monitoring of both direct and indirect lobbying. The same committee is empowered to act on misalignment: “If a trade association to which we belong takes positions that run contrary to our policy interests… management would present such misalignment to the NCGC to review and make a final determination on Gilead’s course of action, consider reducing or eliminating our involvement.” Gilead reports that it recently completed “a more formal review of our most significant trade association relationships” in which it analysed positions on “Climate Change” alongside core business priorities and found they were “generally in close alignment,” indicating an active alignment mechanism. Oversight responsibility is clearly assigned, as “The Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of the Gilead Board of Directors has primary oversight of our ESG program,” and outside expertise is integrated through “outside counsel provid[ing] a periodic review of Gilead’s political activity across the organization.” These disclosures reveal strong governance procedures—regular board-level reviews, defined escalation steps, and documented assessments—yet the company does not publish a standalone, detailed climate-lobbying alignment report and acknowledges that it has “No… public commitment… to conduct [its] engagement activities in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement,” so the transparency and climate-specific orientation of its direct lobbying oversight remain limited.
|
3
|