Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030
On this International Women’s Day, UN Women calls upon all actors to Step It Up for Gender Equality towards a Planet 50-50 by 2030. The initiative asks governments to make national commitments that will close the gender equality gap through laws and policies to national action plans and adequate investment. So far, several African countries including Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi, South Sudan, South Africa, Mozambique, have committed to ending discrimination against women by 2030 and have announced concrete and measurable actions. In addition to governments, Step It Up also works with key stakeholders to commit to Step It Up for gender equality and the empowerment of women. With the support of the partners, the initiative focuses on gender equality and women’s rights issues on two fronts – in their reporting, disrupting stereotypes and biases; and in increasing the number of women in the media, including in leadership and decision-making functions. (Global Issues)
A $2.5 trillion asset manager just put a statue of a defiant girl in front of the Wall Street bull
State Street Global Advisors, a nearly $2.5 trillion investor and unit within State Street Corp., is rolling out the campaign ahead of International Women’s Day on Wednesday. It has installed a bronze statue of a defiant girl in front of Wall Street’s charging bull statue on Tuesday morning as part of its new campaign to pressure companies to add more women to their boards. State Street plans to send a letter to 3,500 companies asking the companies to act. The money manager has cited gender diversity is a way to improve company performance and increase shareholder value. State Street wants every company it’s targeting to have at least one female board member and to take steps toward fixing its gender gap, Lori Heinel, State Street’s deputy global chief investment officer said. “We’re not going to always automatically vote against the company, but we want to make sure there are tangible, concrete measures they are taking,” Heinel said. The statue, expected to stay for a month, was a way to draw attention to the problem. (Business Insider)
Corporate Sustainability
Marketers feel held back by their employers on driving sustainability
A clear majority of marketers feel a moral imperative to incorporate sustainability practices into business, yet the companies they work for do not have a defined sustainability strategy. This was one of the key findings of a new report launched by The Drum, in association with gyro. The report, Mind the Gap: How Marketers Feel About Sustainability, surveyed over 200 brands and agencies to understand how marketers perceive their organisation’s impact on the environment, the barriers they encounter, and how they view their roles alongside the C-suite in driving the sustainability agenda. It found that despite marketers feeling strongly about investing in sustainability to improve the long-term perception of their brands, an absence of management urgency and buy-in are acting as barriers in preventing sustainability from being driven forward. This is despite the 42% of marketers who believe investment in sustainability will lead to long-term financial gains, and 41% feeling confident sustainability will put them in a strong competitive position in the market over the next five years. (The Drum)
Energy
Enhancements to Energy Conservation Act to include better reporting of greenhouse gas emissions
Large industrial emitters in Singapore will need to improve how they measure and report greenhouse gas emissions, in order for them to better understand and manage emissions. These requirements will be set out in the Energy Conservation Act (ECA) which will be enhanced to help companies adopt more energy-efficient processes, announced Minister for Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli in Parliament on Wednesday (March 8th). Providing more details in a statement, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said large industrial facilities will need to submit a monitoring plan and, once approved by the NEA, will have to submit an improved emissions report based on the plan. Under the current ECA, NEA said registered companies have to report their energy use and their annual greenhouse gas emission. Enhancements to the ECA would come into effect from 2018. As part of the Paris climate change agreement, Singapore pledged to reduce its emissions intensity by 36 per cent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. (Channel News Asia)
Waste
Sainsbury’s drops bid to halve household food waste
Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has scaled back an ambitious target to get consumers to halve their household food waste after finding it was more difficult than expected to achieve behavioural change. Sainsbury’s launched its “Waste Less, Save More” programme in 2016 – a £10m five-year plan to help customers save money by reducing their food waste. Using official statistics showing that the average UK family throws away £700 of food each year –as calculated by the government’s waste advisory body Wrap– the supermarket set an ambitious target of getting households to slash this by 50%. The goal is in line with the United Nations’ sustainable development target of halving per capita global food waste at retail and consumer level and reducing food losses along production and supply chains by 2030. “Having spent the last year getting under the skin of household food waste, we have realised that this kind of behavioural change won’t happen overnight, but we have definitely seen positive progress on what will be a longer journey” said Paul Crewe, head of sustainability, energy, engineering and environment for Sainsbury’s. (Guardian)
Source of information: Women at work on bomber, Douglas Aircraft Company, Santa Monica, Calif. by Alfred T. Palmer. No known copyright restrictions.
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