Equileap

Equileap is a social venture that aims to accelerate progress towards gender equality in the workplace as a vital lever in reducing poverty and inequality. Equileap tackles its mission by collecting and checking data, carrying out research, and ranking and rating companies on their gender equality performance. It supports investors to deploy their capital with a gender lens, companies to improve their performance, and policy makers to bring in effective frameworks to increase gender equality at work.

Equileap Publications - Gender Equality Reports by Geographical Region

Scorecard Criteria

For each gender lens criteria a question has been defined, and a data point has been identified to answer the question. Lastly, a score and weighting has been allocated to the individual question to reflect the judgement that some criteria may be more important for furthering gender equality than others.
For the Gender Balance in Leadership and Workforce category, companies can earn a max of 15 points based on the following criteria:
1. Board of Directors - Gender balance of the company’s board of directors/non-executive board (or supervisory board)
2. Executives — Gender balance of the company’s executives / executive board
3. Senior Management — Gender balance of the company’s senior management
4. Workforce — Gender balance of the company’s total employee workforce
5. Promotion and Career Development Opportunities — Ratio of each gender in senior management compared to ratio of each gender in the workforce

For the Policies Promoting Gender Equality category, companies can earn a max of 7 points based on the following criteria:
1. Fair Remuneration — Commitment to pay a fair wage to all employees, even in those countries that do not legally require a minimum
2. Training and Career Development — Commitment to ensure equal access to training and career development to both men and women, at all levels of the company
3. Recruitment Strategy — Commitment to ensure non-discrimination against any type of demographic group including women
4. Safety at Work — Commitment to the safety of employees in the workplace, in travel to and from the workplace and on company related business, and ensure the safety of vendors in the workplace
5. Human Rights — Commitment to ensure the protection of human rights, including employees’ rights to participate in legal, civic and political affairs
6. Social Supply Chain — Commitment to reduce social risks in its supply chain such as forbid business related activities that condone, support, or otherwise participate in trafficking, including for labour or sexual exploitation
7. Employee Protection — Systems and policies for the reporting of internal ethical compliance complaints without retaliation or retribution, such as access to confidential third-party ethics hotlines or systems for confidential written complaints

Fund Rankings

For a fund to earn a score of 100 out of 100 points, it would have to only invest in companies that earn the best score from Equileap, a 22 out of 22.
The problem is, currently, there are ZERO companies that earn Equileap’s best score. That means earning 100 points is unattainable, until companies shift.

An A-B-C-D-F letter grade is assigned based on which quintile the fund's ranking places it within the fund's investment category: "A grade" funds are in the top 20% of their group, and so on, with "F grade" funds in the bottom 20% of their group.