Naspers Ltd – Lobbying Governance & Transparency

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Lobbying Governance

Overall Assessment	Analysis	Score
Moderate	Naspers discloses a rudimentary framework for ensuring its policy engagement supports its climate strategy, but the detail remains limited. The company states it has "a public commitment … to conduct your engagement activities in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement" and confirms this with a simple "Yes", signalling an explicit policy intent to align climate-related engagements. Oversight is assigned at board level: the "social, ethics and sustainability committee retains oversight of stakeholder management across the group" and climate matters are escalated through "the social, ethics and sustainability committee and the risk committee that are subcommittees of the Naspers board", indicating that a formal body is responsible for reviewing external engagement activity. Naspers also describes a nascent process to inform its advocacy positions, noting it has "commissioned Ubuntoo, a sustainability research firm to conduct a comprehensive landscape analysis of the regulations linked to plastics" and that it "joined other private equity investors in a roundtable on standardization on ESG reporting", illustrating some effort to shape and align regulatory discussions with its climate priorities. However, the company does not disclose any systematic procedure for monitoring or auditing the consistency of its direct lobbying, nor does it explain how it evaluates or manages the positions taken by trade associations; there is "no evidence of a regular review or public report on lobbying alignment" and "the company does not disclose criteria for assessing participation in industry bodies". Consequently, while a board-level committee and a Paris-aligned commitment demonstrate moderate governance, the absence of detailed monitoring mechanisms, transparency on indirect lobbying, or any climate-lobbying audit leaves the overall framework only partially articulated. View Sources	2

Overall Assessment

Analysis

Score

Moderate

Naspers discloses a rudimentary framework for ensuring its policy engagement supports its climate strategy, but the detail remains limited. The company states it has "a public commitment … to conduct your engagement activities in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement" and confirms this with a simple "Yes", signalling an explicit policy intent to align climate-related engagements. Oversight is assigned at board level: the "social, ethics and sustainability committee retains oversight of stakeholder management across the group" and climate matters are escalated through "the social, ethics and sustainability committee and the risk committee that are subcommittees of the Naspers board", indicating that a formal body is responsible for reviewing external engagement activity. Naspers also describes a nascent process to inform its advocacy positions, noting it has "commissioned Ubuntoo, a sustainability research firm to conduct a comprehensive landscape analysis of the regulations linked to plastics" and that it "joined other private equity investors in a roundtable on standardization on ESG reporting", illustrating some effort to shape and align regulatory discussions with its climate priorities. However, the company does not disclose any systematic procedure for monitoring or auditing the consistency of its direct lobbying, nor does it explain how it evaluates or manages the positions taken by trade associations; there is "no evidence of a regular review or public report on lobbying alignment" and "the company does not disclose criteria for assessing participation in industry bodies". Consequently, while a board-level committee and a Paris-aligned commitment demonstrate moderate governance, the absence of detailed monitoring mechanisms, transparency on indirect lobbying, or any climate-lobbying audit leaves the overall framework only partially articulated.

View Sources

Lobbying Transparency

Overall Assessment	Analysis	Score
Strong	Naspers provides a clear view of its climate-related lobbying. It identifies two concrete policies it has worked on, backing "the South African Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP) for the five-year period 2023-2027" and engaging with India’s regulation on single-use plastics as part of the circular-economy agenda. The company also explains how it tries to influence these measures. It co-hosted a round-table discussion at the South African pavilion during COP27 that brought together "investors, companies, regulators and industry bodies, including Delivery Hero, Safaricom, Nedbank, PwC, International Finance Corporation, GABV and SBTi," presented the findings of a packaging report directly to "the minister of environment and a Member of the Economic Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister of India," and plans follow-up engagement at a multi-country summit in South Africa. Finally, it is explicit about what it wants to achieve: it supports the JET IP because it will help deliver "the decarbonisation commitments in South Africa's Nationally Determined Contribution" and seeks alignment of India’s single-use-plastic rules with “better replacement materials tailored to the food-delivery business.” Together, these details demonstrate a strong level of transparency across the policy focus, the channels and audiences for engagement, and the specific outcomes the company is advocating.	3