Meridian Energy Ltd

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Direct Lobbying Transparency

Overall Assessment	Comment	Score
Comprehensive	Meridian Energy provides a highly detailed picture of its climate-policy advocacy. It names a wide range of specific legislative and regulatory initiatives it has engaged on, including the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill, the Government’s Interim Hydrogen Roadmap, MBIE’s offshore renewable energy framework, the proposal to ban new fossil-fuel baseload generation, resource-management reforms to replace the Natural and Built Environment Act 2023 and Spatial Planning Act 2023, mandatory climate-related financial disclosure legislation, successive Emissions Reduction Plans and NZ ETS update consultations, and Australia’s Technology Investment Roadmap. It also discloses the methods and audiences for these efforts: formal written submissions to the Energy and Resource Markets Branch of MBIE, the Ministry for the Environment and other agencies, letters from generator CEOs to Ministers, meetings with “Ministers and officials,” and contributions through industry associations whose spending and positions it reports. Finally, Meridian is explicit about the policy outcomes it seeks, such as faster consenting and longer consent durations for renewable infrastructure, strengthening ETS price signals (e.g., raising the cost-containment trigger price), opposing subsidies for offshore renewables while supporting a developer-led approach, broadening mandatory climate-risk disclosures to all large companies, maintaining a cap-and-trade mechanism, and focusing policy on electrifying transport and industrial heat rather than a statutory 100 % renewable electricity target. This level of specificity across policies, mechanisms and desired outcomes demonstrates comprehensive transparency in its climate-related lobbying activities.	4

Lobbying Governance

Overall Assessment	Comment	Score
Strong	Meridian Energy provides clear evidence of a structured process to keep its lobbying activities consistent with its climate objectives. The company states that "management scrutinises all submissions and engagement material through the sign out process to ensure alignment" and confirms that "governance and oversight ultimately sits with Meridian’s executive management team", thereby naming a formal body responsible for reviewing lobbying positions before they are advanced. The same disclosure affirms a policy foundation, committing that every engagement "will ensure that all Meridian engagements and submissions in any jurisdiction are aligned with … the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5° Celsius." Importantly, Meridian addresses both direct and indirect channels: it prepares its own submissions while also being "a member of various trade associations" and promises that "Meridian will advise trade associations when their activities do not appear to align with Meridian’s purpose or the Paris Agreement goals … In cases of significant ongoing misalignment, management will consider changes to Meridian’s membership." This indicates active monitoring, escalation and potential exit decisions for misaligned associations, signalling strong governance across the two main forms of lobbying. The disclosure of "Meridian’s spending on trade associations" adds further transparency. However, the company does not disclose any standalone, published climate-lobbying alignment report, nor does it describe periodic third-party audits or explicit Board-level review of lobbying activities, so the depth of oversight and public verification is more limited than the most comprehensive practices.	3