Gender Insights Report 2023 November 2023

Though many of the policy and practices in place to ensure gender equality is embedded in the company are bottom-up, the Gender Dimensions of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights 2 state that companies should express their commitment to gender equality through a publicly available statement from the highest level. [...] The results of the 112 companies from the apparel and food and agriculture sectors across the full Gender Benchmark Methodology will be discussed in more detail in the next section. [...] Many of the apparel companies assessed in the Gender Benchmark were also assessed in this year’s Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, and all of the food and agriculture companies included in the Gender Benchmark were also assessed in last year’s Corporate Human Rights Benchmark as well as this year’s Food and Agriculture Benchmark. [...] Specifically, out of the 112 companies, 84% of companies have gender-responsive mechanisms through which employees can report grievances, 75% of companies have a publicly available statement of policy that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers, and 89% of companies publicly prohibit violence and harassment in the workplace. [...] While a majority of companies have gender targets in the workplace (71%) and track their progress (67%), only 19% of companies in the sector have targets for the supply chain and a mere 15% of companies track progress.