Benchmark results

2020 Gender Benchmark Baseline Assessment

The World Benchmarking Alliance’s 2020 Gender Benchmark Baseline Assessment looks at the gender data disclosure of the world’s 36 most influential apparel companies. We assess how these companies are integrating a gender strategy across their entire value chain and addressing the needs of women in the workplace and supply chain. In a world designed by men, which companies are setting a new gender trend, and which are out of style?

When women rise, so does business performance, economic growth and development

Creating a more sustainable world that leaves no one behind is not possible without women, who make up half of the global population. In this decade of action, gender equality and women’s empowerment are critical for driving progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women and girls, resulting in deepened inequalities. One sector where this has been felt most acutely is the apparel sector, which employs around 60-75 million people – two thirds of whom are women. This is the starting point for WBA’s gender baseline assessment.

Gender inequalities all too often go unnoticed because of invisible gender data

What we have learned so far from this critical sector is that current corporate disclosure around gender efforts is woefully insufficient.

We will take this important insight from our baseline assessment into our full Gender Benchmark. This will measure and rank the world’s 36 most influential apparel companies on their corporate gender impacts to determine whether they are driving progress on SDG 5 (‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’) and beyond. The Gender Benchmark will be released in 2021.

See 2020 Assessment
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