Gender Equality and Climate Change: The Synergies

by Julie Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing, Impax Asset Management LLC and Pax World Funds

Climate change is a story that encompasses everyone — believer, denier, rich, poor, black, brown, white, majority, minority, male or female. It’s an equal opportunity wolf at the door. But, as is the case with diversity in almost every pursuit, more diverse groups bring more to the table, and considering that climate change is the most important problem humans must solve, diversity has a contribution to make to climate change.

Specifically, there’s an emerging story about women and climate change. The usual narrative on this topic goes something like this: Climate change will take a greater toll on the poor than on the rich. Women are more likely to be poor. Women will suffer more as the globe warms than will men. That’s all true. But there’s a more hopeful, useful narrative: More gender diversity in climate decision-making gives us a better toolkit to address climate change, a problem that threatens us like none we’ve ever confronted before.

We know from many years’ worth of academic and business literature, including the results of our own gender-focused investment strategy, that diverse groups tend to make better decisions than homogeneous groups. Companies, organizations and governments that invest in women are better positioned for success but also contribute to a more harmonious and resilient society by applying a broader, more diverse perspective to big problems, essentially giving us a better shot at making smarter decisions about the threats we face.

Investors are steering their dollars toward companies that understand this contribute to solutions.

Consider the literature. Research has shown that more diverse teams make decisions faster, with fewer meetings, and deliver superior results. McKinsey research showed that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity in management were 25 percent more likely to have financial returns above industry means, and companies in the top gender diversity quartile were 15 percent more likely to have above-industry-average performance. These are not unusual results. Why do diverse groups do better? Diversity helps teams avoid groupthink and focus more on facts and less on assumptions or memory, and diverse groups are more likely to remain objective. 

Read Julie full article here - https://greenmoney.com/gender-equality-and-climate-change-the-synergies 

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