Many CEOs struggle to transform their recognition of the importance of gender equality into management practices and enforcement mechanisms. It can be a further struggle to communicate on such initiatives to stakeholders. However, the integration of gender-related information into communicating overall performance on environmental, social and governance issues through a sustainability report is a crucial factor in organizations’ accountability to women. It can allow all interested stakeholders to gain insights into the effects of organizations’ operations, products, and services on both women and men. It can help stakeholders such as employees, communities, consumers, and investors understand whether a company contributes to gender equality within its sphere of influence.
There are existing and emerging business drivers for improving practices and reporting on gender issues. Research suggests that organizations with gender diverse senior management tend to perform better financially. Organizations also cite reputational benefits for promoting gender equality in terms of enhancing an organization’s ability to compete in the global marketplace for highly skilled workers.
Contributing to gender equality in the community where a company operates can serve to develop a more inclusive recruitment pool within the local vicinity, build loyalty with local customers, avoid litigation, and disruption to operations. Furthermore, the female economy is said to represent a growth market more than twice as big as the opportunity of China and India combined . There is also a growing belief in the investment world, supported by research findings, that companies that empower women and encourage gender diversity may outperform others in the long term – gender performance being one possible indicator of organizations’ financial strength.
In addition to the array of business drivers for companies to strengthen their gender related management practices and reporting, there are also legal and ethical imperatives for managing and reporting on gender. Gender equality has long been enshrined in the international human rights legal and policy frameworks ratified by governments around the world, yet inequality is still shamefully present throughout our societies. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the ILO core conventions all promote gender equality.
Specifically, the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) on Business and Human Rights, who reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council, has been mandated to “integrate a gender perspective throughout his work” and has recently held an expert consultation on how to integrate gender perspective into the UN framework on Business and Human Rights.
But beyond just the legal imperative, fighting gender inequality is simply “the right thing to do.” And it is because of this that civil society and other stakeholders have increased expectations on business to manage, measure and communicate their gender impacts.
Over the last 12 months, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has been working with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) with the support of the governments of Iceland, Germany and Switzerland to produce an educational resource to help organizations using the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework embed material gender issues in their sustainability reports. This work stems from the global recognition of the importance of gender equality and the fact that research on companies’ reporting on gender equality has found that companies rarely report much gender disaggregated data despite the inclusion of gender-related indicators in the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework.
The views of investors, members of civil society groups, and labor representatives who are active readers of sustainability reports were sought, in addition to report preparers, on the ways in which gender components can be integrated into these reports. The resulting consensus-driven document therefore represents a wide range of stakeholder views.
The participants in the consultations defined gender equality in terms of equality under the law, equality of opportunity, and equality of voice. A range of issues related to gender practices and reporting were put forward by these participants. These issues related to organizational governance and values, the workplace, the supply chain, the community, consumers and investment.
Company representatives at the workshops emphasized that they are not able, nor expected by stakeholders, to report on everything and that therefore it is necessary for organizations to prioritize internally and to consult their stakeholders as to what ought to be included in their sustainability reports.
The demand for gender related information in sustainability reporting was clearly expressed by workshop participants internationally in the consultative process undertaken to support the development of the GRI & IFC publication. It is hoped that reporting organizations will make use of this resource publication and integrate gender information into their future reports as part of addressing their stakeholders concerns and operationalizing their commitment to a world of gender equality and sustainable development.
This article is based on a joint GRI & IFC publication A Practitioner’s Guide: Embedding Gender in Sustainability Reporting, which will be launched at the CSR Asia conference in Malaysia on the 28 October 2009 and will be available for download at: http://www.globalreporting.org/CurrentPriorities/GenderandReporting/
