ICC G20 Business Scorecard 4th Edition (March 2015)

The purpose of the ICC G20 Business Scorecard is to examine the G20’s recognition of core business messages and its collective policy response to recommendations put forward by the international business community.

It is ICC’s view that the Scorecard improves the G20 policy-making process by:

• Informing G20 governments on how the business community interprets G20 actions, thereby helping the G20 establish priorities, honour commitments, gauge its progress over time, and identify areas that merit greater attention.
• Improving business leaders’ ability to tailor recommendations and engagement with the G20 by evaluating whether the G20 has recognized business input and how it has carried through on specific business recommendations.

About the Scorecard

First, given the breadth and complexity of the G20’s policy work, the Scorecard focuses on G20 responsiveness to business recommendations; it does not attempt to assess progress on the G20’s entire agenda. Secondly, this fourth edition of the Scorecard concentrates on G20 performance during the 2014 Australian presidency. It includes assessments of progress over time, recognizing that the response cycle of government policymaking is generally longer-term than the time aforded by the one-year G20 presidencies.

In addition, the Scorecard assesses progress by the G20 collectively in responding to business recommendations, rather than assessing the performance of individual G20 countries. Likewise, the Scorecard does not evaluate G20 performance solely on the basis of its achievement of the “end goal.” Rather, it evaluates G20’s recognition of and subsequent actions in dealing with an issue, followed by an assessment of G20’s responsiveness to corresponding business recommendations.

The fourth edition Scorecard takes its starting point from the 20 mutually reinforcing recommendations for G20 governments prepared by B20 Australia in 2014. In addition, recommendations on energy and tax reform—prepared by ICC in 2014 for G20 Leaders’ consideration—are also evaluated. These additional recommendations reflect two areas of the G20 agenda that the 2014 B20 Australia did not address but which ICC believes merit discussion at the highest level.

Recommendations in the Scorecard are grouped into seven policy categories, including the first five issues corresponding to the 2014 B20 Australia task force structure, followed by two ICC G20 Advisory Group priorities on energy and tax reform.

1. Trade and Investment
2. Investment and Infrastructure
3. Financing Growth
4. Human Capital
5. Anti-Corruption
6. Energy and Environment
7. Global Tax Reform

Our colleagues at the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) and the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) contributed the Scorecard’s evaluation of Human Capital. IOE and BIAC contributed significantly to the development of B20 recommendations in this area, and IOE served as the co-chair for the Human Capital task force during the Russian and Australian cycles.