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International Women’s Day[1] on 8 March is an opportunity for companies to reflect on what they are doing to advance the opportunities for and rights of women within their spheres of influence.
At BNP Paribas Asset Management, we believe we can have an impact at three levels:
At a solutions level, we act as responsible investors and good stewards of clients’ assets and trust. In line with our Global Sustainability Strategy[2], and becoming our forward-looking perspective, equality and inclusive growth is one of our focus areas.
In keeping with that stance, we have proposed an investment strategy around the diversity & inclusion theme, seeking to promote inclusive workplaces, ensuring good jobs with decent wages, diversity and gender balance, progress towards pay equity and training & reskilling, and up-skilling to enable employees to adapt to the future of work.
In this approach, we regard companies as investable that strengthen inclusion across their stakeholder base by expanding access and affordability of basic products and services, making safe and reliable products, supporting community development for vulnerable groups and companies that advance human rights in direct operations and supply chains.
In terms of how use our voice as a shareholder, we expect to see 30% board diversity across Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, and at least one female board member in all countries around the world. In 2020, this led us to oppose 36% of board elections at shareholder meetings.
We believe
As a company, our goal is to promote more women into key positions.
We do this a number of ways:
So far, this is what we have achieved:
We believe it is important to ensure women get the recognition they need to advance in their careers.
However, it’s not enough and we know that. That’s why we have planned a number of new initiatives for 2021 that I look forward to updating you on in the near future.
Also read
and watch
[1] This year’s campaign theme is #ChooseToChallenge and calls on people to challenge gender bias and inequality, celebrate women’s achievements and help create an inclusive world.
[2] Read it here 1FC9FC6C-0DA8-468E-90B3-016DDB5CD270 (bnpparibas-am.com)
[3] Founded by male and female business leaders and key figures from the digital world, the #JamaisSansElles association promotes gender diversity across all sectors of society.
Any views expressed here are those of the author as of the date of publication, are based on available information, and are subject to change without notice. Individual portfolio management teams may hold different views and may take different investment decisions for different clients.
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