Diversity & Inclusion

The ESG blowback is here, and it’s real.

Bank of America Chief Diversity & Inclusion and Talent Acquisition Officer, Cynthia Bowman, shares how the company’s taking a data-driven DEI approach to tackle systemic barriers to hiring and mobility.

HBS’s George Serafeim discusses his new book, “Purpose and Profit,” and what debates around Tesla and Danone can teach us about sustainability and ESG.

The companies topping our 2022 Workforce Equity and Mobility Ranking outpace the Russell 1000 in setting specific DEI targets, implementing fair chance hiring, cultivating apprenticeships, and offering paid training and tuition reimbursement.

Of the 100 largest American public companies by workforce size, 43% disclose that they have conducted a pay gap analysis by race and ethnicity (up from 34% last year), and 22% disclose the actual results (up from 14%).

While the public believes that ensuring pay equity is an integral part of achieving racial equity, over half of the companies we tracked in the 2022 Corporate Racial Equity Tracker continue to lack disclosure around this issue.

Companies seeking to do right by their stakeholders will have their mettle tested in the weeks and months to come. Let’s start with wages…

We spoke with business consultants Susan McPherson of McPherson Strategies and Mackenzie Long and Caty Gordon of Evergreen Strategy Group about guidance they have been sharing with companies in response to the overturning of abortion as a federal right.

On June 13, JUST Capital convened corporate and nonprofit leaders for a virtual event – Moving the Needle: Tracking Corporate Progress on Racial Equity. 

Our 2022 Corporate Racial Equity Tracker, launched last week, tracks how the country’s largest 100 employers are measuring up to these expectations on a range of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues from workforce demographic disclosure to community investments.    

We took a look at companies leading in disclosures for our 2022 Corporate Racial Equity Tracker – including Accenture, Intel, JPMorgan Chase, and Target – as well as those disclosing the least.

The Corporate Racial Equity Tracker offers an in-depth accounting of DEI disclosures from the 100 largest U.S. employers, through 23 metrics across six specific dimensions of racial equity.

In 2022, nine in ten respondents – with strong majorities across demographic groups – say it’s important for companies to promote racial equity in the workplace.

Women make up over 40% of board members and chair at least one committee at General Motors, Citigroup, Procter & Gamble, Nielsen, and Merck.

We broke down how investor pressure, coalitions, and specific asks helped lead to over 4% growth in average Russell 1000 board gender diversity over two years, and what it means for corporate diversity efforts.

S&P revealed this week it dropped Tesla from its flagship ESG index. We take a closer look at why, and how Elon could improve Tesla’s ESG profile.

We spoke with JPM’s Demetrios Marantis about the work behind the bank’s new ESG report, including an update on the firm’s $2.5 trillion sustainability plan, as well as its response to the Russia-Ukraine war.

This past week saw three high-profile examples of why it’s so important for corporate leaders to understand what makes their stakeholders tick when making decisions involving complex societal issues. 

February being Black History Month, it’s a great time for business leaders to take stock of their progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments.

Amid calls for greater transparency, companies that disclose an EEO-1 report saw higher returns than their Russell 1000 peers by 2.4% over the trailing one-year period ending in 2021.

Our analysis finds a slim majority of Russell 1000 companies share race and ethnicity workforce data as investors and the SEC intensify their focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion transparency.

JUST’s Ashley Marchand Orme joined Andrew Ross Sorkin to discuss how Russell 1000 companies are disclosing workforce diversity data.

Throughout 2021, we turned to Americans to learn what they think companies should do to address the most pressing challenges of our time and move toward a recovery that serves all their stakeholders. Here’s what they said.

We heard from Newark-based corporate leaders on why investing locally presents key economic opportunity for communities themselves – and for business.

On GivingTuesday, Grameen America CEO Andrea Jung sat down with Harlem Capital’s Tonna Obaze and the Defense Department’s Won Palisoul for a conversation on how companies can do better for women.