06/08/2025
The Good Lobby Summer Academy is a unique event gathering a select group of leading thinkers, practitioners, and academics working internationally on new forms and politics of influence, mobilisation and lobbying.
Discover the insights from Deborah McNamara, Executive Director at ClimateVoice on the 2025 edition of the Summer Academy
*The following reflects a synthesis of personal insights that emerged during the time spent together with colleagues across sectors and geographies at The Good Lobby Summer Academy in July, 2025. Please note my thanks to the many thought leaders who sparked thoughtful debate and discussion on the topics reflected here.
Last month I was honored to participate in the 14th annual Good Lobby Summer Academy with colleagues across many sectors and geographies. We tackled the question of how to foster a responsible and self-aware politics of influence – and what will be required in order to adapt and survive in the new geopolitical landscape. We confirmed the need for strong alliances with shared purpose across organizations and throughout civil society, and also considered the importance of political and civic education to ensure more resilient democratic institutions and societies.
My work leading ClimateVoice is centered around the need for stronger climate leadership especially from the corporate sector and policy makers. The following key takeaways from the Academy are focused on the intersections between companies, their influence and lobbying practices and what is needed more broadly in the corporate political responsibility ecosystem when it comes to enacting positive climate policies. While there is significant progress underway, our time together reminded me of the many roadblocks faced when it comes to implementing policies that protect human rights, nature and biodiversity, our climate and communities.
Additional key insights that emerged include the need for new narratives that move beyond facts, spark empathy and speak to emotions. Perhaps most importantly, I was also reminded about the continued importance of shaping structures and systems from within – building resilience and relationships in the process. The Academy served just this, offering space and time to reflect, build community across sectors and silos and consider solutions needed to meet the next wave of challenges ahead.
#1: Let’s learn from our failures when it comes to trade associations and the climate policy obstruction underway.
During our time together we considered the role that trade associations and business groups play in too often obstructing and opposing policies that serve the public interest, with climate policy obstruction serving as a key example. The good news: there is mounting global awareness regarding trade association misalignment as a key problem to resolve when it comes to any company’s lobbying activities. Ideally, climate-related policies globally should be moving towards enacting methane, soot and power plant pollution standards, enabling clean energy infrastructure and innovation, electric vehicle and electrification incentives, energy efficiency programs, investments in transportation infrastructure, and support for a just transition away from fossil fuels.
Unfortunately here in the United States where I live and work, the current administration is leading us in a diametrically opposite direction. Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, freezing spending aimed to advance the clean energy transition, declaring a National Energy Emergency to accelerate fossil fuel production, halting permits, leases, and loans for onshore and offshore wind projects, lifting restrictions on oil and gas drilling on public lands, and undermining the mission and authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate pollution are just a few of the many reversals of climate policy progress underway.
These policy trends point to an absolute failure when it comes to corporate political responsibility and companies effectively lobbying in alignment with stated pro-nature and climate-focused values and goals. We dug into this core problem, considering how trade groups representing a broad array of company interests can ensure their political engagement becomes more responsible. Ultimately, we need to continue to address the problem of the lowest common denominator within trade groups dominating lobbying outcomes.
#2. Companies, institutions and governments should assess “policy footprints” and move to align policy activity with stated values and goals.
Should companies stay with trade groups who are consistently lobbying against climate-policy progress? Is being at the table and part of policy discussions enough? Many trade groups continue to overwhelmingly receive failing grades when it comes to climate policy in particular – and thus far company engagement is not successfully turning the tides.
So, what to do? Emerging solutions discussed include companies speaking up for themselves when their trade groups don’t speak for them. Furthermore, companies can and should be banding together to consolidate and expand influence. Auditing trade association relationships, aligning lobbying practices with values and goals, and joining and/or leading coalitions focused on pro-climate lobbying could all point toward solutions needed. Lobbying should be considered part of any sustainable business strategy – and transparency and disclosure are also essential elements in addressing these challenges.
We also contemplated a transparency code of values for the private sector, where trade associations would disclose who they primarily speak for (for example the U.S. Chamber lobbying in alignment with American Petroleum Institute and American Gas Association). Other solutions discussed included requiring an explanation of the evidence base for positions that trade associations take, trade associations explaining publicly the diversity of viewpoints across member organizations, and the disclosure of processes around how final positions are advanced.
#3: New narratives are needed that move beyond ‘facts,’ spark empathy and speak to emotions.
Alongside the many discussions of policy-related challenges faced, we dug into the need to revisit the stories we are telling and how we are telling them. What if anger has become a new center of gravity? What if evidence-based advice, science and facts are not the primary key to influence today? If ‘facts don’t win fights,’ we will need to appeal to emotions more than ever in working to effect change.
Guiding principles that emerged include bringing more emotion into our collective storytelling and campaigns, moving beyond persuasion, focusing on inspiration, and speaking to the qualities of dignity, coherence and compassion.
We can also get ‘back to the basics’ when it comes to sharing our visions and values (ie: ensuring a livable home planet for all – including future generations, protecting human rights, supporting healthy communities, bolstering democratic institutions and civil society). Keep it simple and relatable. Rather than working so hard to prove a point, perhaps we need to figure out how to ‘talk to the stomach’ of human experience again.
With so much competition for our time and attention, we also contemplated how “urgency can become the enemy of depth.” How can we best channel urgency into momentum and action without sacrificing complexity and nuance? Speed and busyness don’t hold the complexity we face – we need narratives that address this and cut through the collective noise and competing narratives at play.
#4: Let’s shape structures and systems from within – building resilience and relationships in the process.
We considered a connection between the erosion of democratic and civic values and the need for more political education around what healthy participatory democracies and systems look like. How can we increase education around what healthy civic engagement looks like? How can we best foster participatory processes to create healthy organizations and institutions that represent the values reflective of a flourishing community and society?
Individuals shape our institutions and organizations and can transform systems and structures from within. Employees too can be part of the solution, engaged and educated and holding their employers accountable. Each of us can play a role, regardless of what arena we are working to influence. As one speaker eloquently pointed out, the ‘Butterfly Effect’ in chaos theory is important to remember: even small actions within a system can lead to larger and unpredictable changes. With complex systems and structures, slight variations have the potential to lead to significant outcomes. Every action matters.
Finally, being in the Basque Country reminded me of the resilience required to endure the ebbs and flow of time as well as the highs and lows of political shifts. Basque is the oldest living language in Europe and has survived thousands of years through foreign rule, political regimes and also active suppression, especially during Spain’s Franco era. Despite persistent policies that suppressed the Basque culture and language, it survives and is a reminder of what can endure despite persistent challenge and threat. Taking time to reflect, debate, discuss and innovate builds much-needed resilience – along with sharing food, building community, celebrating culture and creating the conditions for new alliances and collaborations to emerge.