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As You Sow
Introducing: Gender Equality Funds
From As You Sow
Invest your values
Individual and institutional investors can align their actions with their values, and take responsibility for the investments they own. Aligning investments with values requires that you know what you own — but if you’re invested through mutual funds, it has been nearly impossible to know what individual companies you own. That’s changed with As You Sow’s Gender Equality Funds. Now, you can harness your personal economic power to confront big business.
How to make your investments align with your values
1
Search for mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by name, ticker, or asset manager. Our database covers 3,000 stock funds available in the U.S.
2
See your results. For each fund, we scan which companies the fund invests in, and calculate a fund gender equality score. Then, we rank funds against others with a similar investment profile, and apply a gender equality grade based on those group rankings.
3
Look for options that align with your values. Sort and compare to find funds that fit your investing needs.
Gender Equality Funds is powered by the Equileap Gender Equality Scorecard, inspired by the UN’s Women Empowerment Principles. The Equileap Gender Equality Scorecard scores companies based on 19 criteria, including gender balance across the workforce, the gender pay gap, paid parental leave, and anti-sexual harassment policies.
Gender balance in leadership and workforce
- 1 - Board of Directors - Percentage of male and female Board of Directors as a proportion of the total number.
- 2 - Executives - Percentage of male and female Executives as a percentage of the total number.
- 3 - Senior Management - Percentage of male and female senior managers as a percentage of total.
- 4 - Workforce - Percentage of male and female employees as a percentage of total.
- 5 - Promotion and Career Development Opportunities - Ratio of each gender in Senior Management compared to ratio of each gender in the Workforce.
Equal compensation and work life balance
- 6 - Living Wage - Commitment to ensure payment of a living wage to all employees, even in those countries that do not legally require a minimum wage or where minimum wage is not a living wage.
- 7 - Gender Pay Gap - Commitment to provide comparable wages for comparable work and to close the gender pay gap.
- 8 - Parental Leave - Paid leave programs (at least 2/3 paid) for child care to both primary or secondary carers globally or at least in the country of incorporation.
- 9 - Flexible Work Options - Option for employees to control and/or vary the start and end times of the work day and/or vary the location from which employees work.
Policies promoting gender equality
- 10 - Training and Career Development - Commitment to ensure equal access to training and career development to both men and women.
- 11 - Recruitment Strategy - Commitment to ensure non-discrimination against any type of demographic group and equal opportunities to ensure gender parity.
- 12 - Freedom from Violence, Abuse and Sexual Harassment - Prohibits all forms of violence in the work place, including verbal, physical and sexual harassment.
- 13 - 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.
- 14 - Human Rights - Commitment to ensure the protection of the rights of all people it works with including employees’ rights to participate in legal, civic and political affairs.
- 15 - 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 labor or sexual exploitation.
- 16 - Supplier Diversity - Commitment to ensure diversity in the supply chain, including support for women owned businesses in the supply chain.
- 17 - Employee Protection - Systems and policies for the reporting of internal ethical compliance complaints without retaliation or retribution, including but not limited to access to confidential third-party ethics hotlines or systems for confidential written complaints.
Commitment, transparency, and accountability
- 18 - Commitment to Women’s Empowerment - Recognition and commitment to ensuring women’s empowerment in the workplace.
- 19 - Audit - Undertaken and awarded an independent gender audit certificate by an Equileap recognized body.
Find sustainably-invested mutual funds and ETFs
Search for funds from your 401(k), retirement plan, or personal portfolio
Index funds
Passive investing, mostly based on indexes from S&P, Russell/FTSE, and MSCI, has grown tremendously in recent years. But when you put your money on autopilot, you may run a higher risk of investing in companies that are not aligned with your values. Below are the gender equality grades for 10 common index funds.
Target date funds
Target date funds are groups of funds, where each fund in the series targets a different mix of stocks and bonds for investors with different retirement time horizons. The default option in employer-offered retirement plans is often a target date fund series. Below are 20 of the largest target date fund series, rated using the 2050 fund.
Are fund managers investing in gender equality?
Are your savings invested with one of these financial giants? Click through and find out how the mutual funds they offer stack up.
Tracking trillions in investments
Gender lens investing isn't just a moral question. Research shows gender diverse companies tend to have better returns and lower risk.
Equal pay and, more broadly, equal opportunities at work are powerful levers to grow global prosperity: they have the potential to take millions of women and their families out of poverty and move us closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, as defined by the United Nations.
– Equileap, Gender Equality Global Report and Ranking (2017)
Discover which funds are investing in the companies that lead the field in terms of gender equality. A growing body of evidence correlates various gender-lens investing criteria with higher financial performance and lower investment risk.
Use Gender Equality Funds to search and compare mutual funds based on their gender-lens score and financial performance. You can use our database to find sustainable investment options that meet your specific needs.
Promote gender equality in the workplace
Built for investors who want to make a difference. Our unique dataset can help you ensure your money is making an impact.
Find sustainably-invested mutual funds and ETFs
Search for funds from your 401(k), retirement plan, or personal portfolio
More from Invest Your Values
See how mutual funds and ETFs are rated on issues ranging from fossil fuels, to deforestation, gender equality, guns, prisons, weapons, and tobacco
Disclaimer: As You Sow is not an investment adviser
As You Sow is not an investment adviser as that term is defined under federal and state (California) laws and regulations. As You Sow is a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and empowering shareholders to change corporations for the good through the collection, analysis and dissemination of relevant information to the public, free of charge. As You Sow does not provide financial planning, legal or tax advice. Nothing on this website shall constitute or be construed as an offering of financial instruments, or as investment advice or investment recommendations.
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