Our Public Policy & Advocacy

Transparent and Ethical Participation

In order to create the world we want tomorrow, we must engage and partner with external stakeholders, including governments, regulators, trade associations, peers and NGOs. These open dialogues allow us to learn from others and share our initiatives. 

The Five Principles underpin how we operate throughout our business. We approach our external engagements in a transparent and ethical manner, and require our third-parties to do the same. 

LOBBYING DISCLOSURE
We comply with all applicable laws in the markets where we operate. Annually, we report US lobbying expenditure in the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) database and EU expenditure in the EU Transparency Register. Lobbying figures include compensation for Associates working on advocacy and resources allocated to external consultants.

WORKING WITH TRADE ASSOCIATIONS
We work with many trade associations around the world, and hold leadership positions in some of them. These collaborations allow us to make our voice heard on issues important to our company, our industry, and broader sustainability and nutrition issues. We voluntarily disclose some of the key trade associations that we work with.

POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Mars does not make financial contributions to candidates, or to political parties or committees. We also do not contribute corporate funds to support electioneering communications. We do not have an employee PAC. We respect the right of our Associates to contribute to a candidate or cause of their choice on their personal time and with their personal funds.

POLICIES AND PRACTICES
We strive to use our voice within the industry to drive constructive dialogue, and we lobby on issues that affect our business by publically supporting certain policies. We focus on areas where we have the greatest influence and where the scale of potential impacts on people, pets and the planet is largest. We publish our perspective on many of these topics on our Policies and Practices page.