"Actually leading companies have started to report quite a bit of performance information, but it is very difficult to make company comparison as firms report very different kinds of data."

Workshop Location: London | View Kate Grosser's video »

Advisory Group Member

"What are the primary principles that govern what we are discussing? Whether the business case for gender equality is a sufficient or necessary condition to make (gender and sustainability reporting) effective? Or whether the rights and equality discourse is more appropriate and more realistic? And what I think we came down to is that both are important."

Workshop Location: London | View Ines Smyth's video »

Advisory Group Member

"For us it is not just about diversity, it is about inclusion: making sure that women can use their skills, their strengths—to be positive contributors to the success of our organization. So in a nut-shell, we believe that our workforce needs to represent the markets which we operate in."

Workshop Location: London | View Marianne Mwaniki's video »

Advisory Group Member

"We at Itaipu use four gender indicators in our reporting, but we also mention other gender indicators as they relate to the society, community, governance, etc. Now we are exploring whether we can disaggregate existing reporting indicators by gender (for example as they relate to health)."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Heloisa Covolan's video »

Advisory Group Member

"At some point I would also like to see (gender indicators) as part of the CEO's score card. How the external board of directors would view some of the sustainability indicators, particularly around the gender diversity, and how these things get integrated in the key performance indicators of the board members."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Srimathi Shivashankar's page »

Advisory Group Member

"Companies need to manage gender practices in a very robust way so that they can be competitive not only in the workplace by attracting and retaining the best and the brightest employees, but also in positioning themselves for the future."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Amy Augustine's page »

Advisory Group Member

"I think we are talking about different levels of change. And we are never going to be able to say that everyone one has to conform to the same thing and that all have to go on the same path. The important thing is that organizations chose where they want to start and how they want to pursue gender issues within a broad set of guidelines that say 'Do no harm. Well-being is important. Making money is not the only aim here.' "

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Aruna Rao's page »

Advisory Group Member

"People working on this agenda are not just doing it for business reasons. We need to speak to people's hearts and minds. Everybody cares about this as an agenda. If we just focus on the business reasons for doing it, we really miss a trick. People want to do this because it is the right thing, not just because it is good for business."

Workshop Location: London | View Sam Mercer's video »

"This initiative, where a lot of Global Compact companies use the GRI, is very exciting and I think it will provide a big impetus for these organizations to start reporting on gender."

Workshop Location: London | View Maureen Kilgour's video »

"We hope to join forces with IFC and other international financial institutions (IFIs) in order to ensure that we can deliver best products in our countries of operation."

Workshop Location: London | View Chikako Kuno's video »

"And unless businesses really understand that, they are not going to be just (even if they are in 'fair trade'), and they are not doing the right thing. But I also don't think they can be as profitable as they could otherwise be."

Workshop Location: London | View Annette Lawson's video »

"Many of our clients are asking for some sort of established framework and benchmarks to report. As private companies you also have competitor and—in terms of reporting—you are also exposing yourself to risk as this is what your investors are looking at. So you want to make sure that you are following established guidelines and rules to make sure that everyone is doing the same."

Workshop Location: London | View Stine Jensen's video »

"What we are trying to do is to establish for the citizens in the municipalities or the users of public services that they shall have equal service whether you are a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. We do is to find an instrument to certify service providers, for example schools, on gender. This is why we are so interested in gender and sustainability indicators."

Workshop Location: London | View Marie Trollvik's video »

"In our opinion at Women in Law, those companies that implement best-practice wherever they operate and having regard for sustainability are the ones that will in any case win on their bottom-line performance."

Workshop Location: London | View Linda Spedding's video »

"One of the areas we'd like to understand better in terms of our output, is the impact gender portrayal has on our audiences — consumers of BBC output. What are the key audience indicators to report on over time?"

Workshop Location: London | View Bola Fatimilehin's page »

"Gender equality is increasingly important for companies today and it can affect their competitiveness. We measure equal opportunities for career development and have received a 'Labor and Life' prize by the Province of Siena."

Workshop Location: London | View Silvia Giuseppini's page »

"There have been some great advancements and a number of very positive things have happened. However, there are also a number of remaining challenges."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Tim le Roux's video »

"We consider women's participation not just as being "politically correct" or one of the statistics we must report on—but we consider it as business imperative..."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Vusa Vundla's video »

"The Gender Reporting Initiative gives us the necessary data to be able to monitor what is being implemented."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Lillian Ngina Mutunga's video »

"It is important to say... you can have policies and regulations in place, but if you have no way of tracking them, I think it is absolutely useless."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Elizabeth Malumo's video »

"Gender reporting helps us keep track of our achievements and challenges. Gender reporting enables us and our partners to gauge the levels of development and the gaps that need to be addressed."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Dorcas Hove's video »

"Research makes the link between policies and performance in the workplace around gender. It also demonstrates the interest of ACCA to go beyond sustainability reporting awards, but to look at the sustainable development issues that happen behind the awards - gender being one of them."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Daisy Kopolo's video »

"With regards to reporting, it is not about reporting per se but about the value reporting can bring to the communities."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Douglas Kativu's video »

"This enables us — not only from a human capital point of view — to be able to recruit, retain and motivate our female staff. It helps us to enhance our reputation as an 'employer of choice'. And it also helps us differentiate our offerings from a financial services perspective of view."

Workshop Location: Johannesburg | View Lesego Lebuso's video »

"The gender issue is very important to Natura because we are a cosmetics company with most of our customers being women and our business model being a direct sales model."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Aline de Oliveira's video »

"The opportunity to discuss the question of gender in reporting is quite timely in Brazil because Brazilian companies... are much more interested today than 10 years ago on how they dialogue with the society on what they are doing."

Workshop Location:São Paulo | View Thereza Lobo's video »

"I think it is as important to have indicators to measure what we are doing. A lot of companies have measurements already, but the important thing is to do it in a standardized way so we can compare with what others are doing and how we are progressing."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Marcia Bueno's video »

"It is important that we not only see gender reporting as part of the existing gender indicators in their reports, but to measure how these investments in gender improve the performance of the company. We have to find out how to measure that impact. This will be a great step for all companies to see that 'investing in gender is a great thing because it improves the performance of the company.' "

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Cláudia Jeunon's page »

"Gender is very important to us because we work with women. Women are the main consumers of our products and it is very special to understand their feelings and intentions in our society."

Workshop Location:São Paulo | View Andreia Marques Postal's video »

"There are some studies regarding diversity, gender and corporate governance. One study shows that there is some evidence that with women sitting on boards, the performance of the board improves."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Carlos Eduardo Lessa Brandão's video »

"We want to measure why having women not only on board, but all over the company, is important to business."

Workshop Location:São Paulo | View Darlene Menconi's video »

"We work to build the capacity of other NGOs in the field of communications. The gender question is too important for us, because many organizations in Brazil work on that issue."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Simone Paranhos' video »

"It is very important for us not only to consider women, but also men.  Sometimes we think they have quite different roles, but often they are also not that different. It is not just a men's world out there, but also a women's world."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Michel Santos' page »

"Sustainability is generally a feminine thing. It is a paradigm break in terms of management, and because it is fundamentally a feminine way to look at the world. How can something that — in my point of view — is fundamentally feminine be managed only by men? This is why the gender discussion is very important to me."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Cibele de Macedo Salviatto's video »

"... We have recognized issues that are relevant for gender, particularly around communications — as to how women are portrayed, how men are portrayed, and all the communication strategies from the companies."

Workshop Location:São Paulo | View Elizabeth Arango's video »

"When a woman is in a position of power within in a company, she can see things that men cannot see. It (the issue of gender) is very important as that will allow companies to be stronger, to be more competitive, to be more equitable and to bring about social justice."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Ivana Rizvi's video »

"For GTZ, the gender theme is a very important theme — also for our overall program in Brazil."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Walter Jäckel's page »

"I think men and women—together—can build a better work environment. Women have a particular way of solving issues and of creating a (work) environment in a corporation. And the women’s perspective enriches the management and can address questions that men cannot talk about because it is not acceptable by the society."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Nisia Werneck's video »

"Defining the criteria around which to prioritize and structure equality policies as well practices will depend on the context, resources, and strategy of each organization."

Workshop Location: São Paulo | View Silvia do Valle Pereira's page »

"This (gender reporting project) will be relevant for companies not just in terms of reporting, but reporting as a tool to assess your policies and to check on your internal policies as they relate to gender."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Richa Gautam's page »

"The business case is flowing from our values and it is built into our values. There is nothing beyond that. It is intrinsic that equality is something very important and it needs to be reflected in our actions. Rather than saying 'how is this helping us monetarily' it is part and parcel of each individual and it is part of the principle of values that need to be adapted."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Vijay Ganapathy's page »

"Wherever people are, gender is very important. Without gender, businesses don't work and business improvement does not happen. That is my own feeling. Gender balance and gender equity is very important for business success. Gender is a business model and it is sticking."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Parul Soni's page »

"... Once you have reporting, it automatically entails that you have responsibility and accountability. And this works very well, because you now have someone say 'report'. Whether it is in the formal or informal sector in not the point. But it can make a huge difference."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Sunita Kaistha's page »

"Currently, the companies don't see the value for gender reporting. And unless they see that and it is being communicated to them, companies will treat gender as a 'good to have' but not 'necessary to have'. "

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Harsh Purohit's page »

"We must wear gender-lenses to see where gender discrimination is taking place. And this kind of reporting, self-assessment, and setting benchmarks by which you measure yourself against (gender) indicators is very important."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Amita Sahaya's page »

"We promote the ILO standards pertaining to gender issues. ILO believes that gender equality is at the heart of decent work."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Anandan Menon's page »

"Gender issues definitely help the better attraction of female talent and retention of female employees. Moreover, women are more and more becoming aware and prefer to work with companies that are gender sensitive."

Workshop Location: Delhi | View Gayatri Paul's page »

"Gender reporting, as all the other aspects of GRI reporting, is enormously important. Firstly, because 'one gets what one measures'. Secondly, it is important factor for a significant and growing portion of investors who care about the social as well as the financial performance of their investments. A large number of those investors in general care about the advancement and inclusion of women, and also a large portion of them are women themselves."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Alice Tepper Marlin's page »

"... We are working with very large corporate buyers and large government agencies in our target markets who are interested in having their supply chains be more inclusive and more representative of their communities, and that includes women-owned businesses as suppliers."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Elizabeth Vazquez's page »

"We have done studies in the OECD that show that making better use of women will contribute to economic growth, environmental sustainability and social welfare — whether in rich or in poor countries. And this is why gender reporting by companies is so important."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Candice Stevens' video »

"There is an international convention on the rights of women to be free from economic discrimination. That should be the starting point. Measuring the number of women in the board room or among the executive ranks does not necessary give equality or shared prosperity to the workers in any multinational corporation or in the informal economy."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Dianne Massimo-Tamuk's video »

"It is necessary to get the attention of people within the company and to let them know that stakeholders care about gender issues and to make the business case to show how this is 'not only the right thing to do', but that it is good for business. That is what will ultimately drive change. And the reporting process can be part of that cycle of a company looking at its own performance and improving performance."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Leah Haygood's video »

"A diverse workplace is more attractive to a wider pool of talent, thereby giving companies with better diversity records a distinct advantage in recruiting employees. All forms of diversity, including gender diversity, also can be key drivers of innovation. Furthermore, recent studies of diversity have found that diverse boards are more likely to hold CEOs accountable for poor stock price performance."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Peter DeSimone's page »

"I think companies and different organizations say that it is hard to keep track of gender. But it actually is not that hard. It can be done. There simply needs to be more monitoring of this. And examination of these statistics and cultural change can happen if you get this initial reporting process in place."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Heidi Welsh's video »

"Through the planning cycle, we report on and monitor gender integration, and the challenge now is to make sure that the indicators appropriately reflect gender integration in the different areas. So within the Plan of Action framework we are developing very specific indicators that the countries will agree upon and eventually have to report on."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Claire Stienecker's page »

"What I am particularly interested in is moving beyond — what I would call — the numbers game. 'We have 3 women on board, and therefore our work is done'. How do we actually affect change in an organization? How do we affect transformation? And that is where the hardest work is, because that dimension is not so easy to measure."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Diane White's video »

"... If a company makes a value statement or a pledge to support gender equality and gender parity, then we seek to make sure that their political involvement supports that value."

Workshop Location: Washington, DC | View Maureen O'Brien's page »