The Organisational Gender Footprint

Your organisational gender footprint goes way beyond DEI.

Does our equity approach truly create equal spaces? Most organisations approaching diversity, equity and inclusion today are doing so by focusing on their team make-up and leaning heavily on changing interpersonal biases. Concurrently, we’re finding that to achieve real equality, we also need to re-imagine our spaces, structures and narratives.

What does a truly equal space look like?

Taking inspiration from carbon footprints, I’ve been thinking about what it means for an organisation to evaluate their gender footprint. Gender data expert Rachel Elsinga says that non-profits are held to much higher gender reporting standards than private organisations, and are required to report their Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) indicators.

What would a GESI look like for the private sector? How might we measure an organisation’s gender* footprint? Here’s a very first dream draft, operating at three levels:

1. Your people:
   there’s much happening in this space already with DEI initiatives, but there’s room for improvement. For example, how deep do these programs go? Is administrative, maintenance and cleaning staff included, and how so?
2. Your outputs:
   is it enough to say we’re diverse on the inside but exclude who we serve on the outside? For example, an FMCG company might have a massive push for gender-equal leadership, but if they’re still targeting women with skin lightening creams, who are they truly serving?
3. Your supply chains
   the most invisible and maybe the most powerful. Is it enough for a fashion company, for example, to say that they have DEI efforts, when in fact their suppliers on the other side of the world might be oppressive, sexist or otherwise? I call this one the most powerful because if this truly makes it into the footprint in a real way, we can achieve cross-accountability like never before.

I know — this is a hefty ask. But, we’ve got to start with radical imagination to get close to it. So I leave you with a bold question: is there a fourth factor I should add to my dream draft?

PS: Thank you to Colleen C, who helped inspire this thinking!
*We have used gender interchangeably with women only as an example here.

This post is an excerpt from Unconforming: a newsletter about Design for Women. Unconforming goes out every two weeks and also shares learnings from experts, job and other opportunities, examples and articles — all to make an impact in the women’s space. Sign up here to get it in your inbox!