1. Sexual harassment claims and companies’ specific steps to resolve the claims
2. Initiatives to support victims in reporting sexual and gender-based violence
Equally important, investors have the opportunity to influence fundamental corporate behavior by investing in companies that embed a comprehensive commitment to gender equity into their policies and practices.
A handful investors are already taking significant steps toward aligning their investments with companies that disclose their practices related to equity and opportunity in the workplace. This is being made possible in part because of new efforts to systematically improve disclosure and reporting practices among corporations. For example, EquiLeap, an Amsterdam-based organization, measures gender equality in public companies against an extensive proprietary Equileap Gender Equality Scorecard, which looks at 19 different data points, including recruitment, training and promotion, the gender composition of management and workforce (gender balance being the ideal), fair wages and equal pay, family leave policies, work-life balance and supply chains. It also includes alarm bells to mark, and if necessary, to exclude companies that have cases taken against them or have been judged to be guilty of gender discrimination and/or harassment. The Equileap Scorecard is inspired by the UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles, and looks at the workplace from a rights-based perspective rather than purely from a diversity prospective, which most gender-lens investment strategies focus on.
At Cornerstone Capital Group, we are also embedding a robust gender analysis into our investment review process given our clients’ interest in gender lens investing approaches that reflect their values and indeed that have the ability to change how corporations behave.
But we can’t do it alone or even with the limited number of investors who are committed to gender lens investing. We will only be successful in making the needed change that #metoo has given voice to if many more investors ask hard questions of their investment managers and the companies in which they are invested. Collectively we must demand more of companies and we must act to ensure that they take the basic step of disclosing the information that investors need to make informed decisions. Because if not now, when?
Katherine Pease is managing director and head of impact Strategy at Cornerstone Capital Group.