L’Oréal Places First Among Beauty, Luxury Companies in Gender-Equality Ranking
PARIS — L’Oréal held the top rank among pure beauty and luxury goods players in the 2022 edition of the Gender Equality Global Report & Ranking, compiled by Equileap.
The provider of data and insights on gender equality researched 3,895 publicly listed companies based on 19 gender equality criteria. Those included gender balance on the board and among employees, and pay gaps.
Together, the companies represent 102 million employees around the world. Each one has a market capitalization upward of $2 billion or is listed on a major exchange in 23 developed geographic markets.
The study was carried out in the 2021 calendar year, until Dec. 22.
L’Oréal ranked 14th overall.
“We are proud to be recognized by Equileap for the fifth year in a row as first in France and in the top 20 worldwide in terms of gender equity,” said Nicolas Hieronimus, chief executive officer of L’Oréal. “Our longstanding commitment to DE&I is key to our extra-financial performance and how we create the beauty that moves the world. We count on partners like Equileap to measure our commitment in order to ensure continued improvement.”
In Europe, among luxury and non-pure beauty companies, Burberry ranked 34th; Unilever, 37th, and Kering, 100th.
U.S.-based consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, which produces beauty products among other consumer goods, placed 7th.
Gender equality is getting better, albeit slowly. The average score of the 100 companies this edition was 66 percent, versus 64 percent in the prior edition.
Australia had the most companies on the list, with 23, including Mirvac, the property developer, which placed first.
Equileap found that companies located in countries with strong legislation on gender equality performed the best.
U.K. companies held 19 of the top 100 spots, as well as five in the top 10.
The U.S. and Japan had the most represented companies in the dataset, but the U.S. only had 14 companies and Japan had none in the ranking.
“Gender balance from the board to the workforce is a key component of companies’ gender equality performance,” the Equileap study said. “Glenmede’s 2020 analysis of gender lens investing found that Russell 1000 companies in the top quintile of Equileap’s Category A (Gender Balance in Leadership and Workforce) experienced on average a greater return (+2.6 percent) and less risk than companies in the bottom quintile. Multiple research papers have corroborated the finding that gender-diverse companies outperform their less diverse peers.”
The study said: “We are far from reaching gender balance globally on any level. Female representation is low and increasing at a very slow pace.”
Up just one percentage point against last year’s ranking, women make up 26 percent of board members, 18 percent of executives and 25 percent of senior management. Women’s representation in the workforce, at 37 percent, remained unchanged on 2021.
For more, see:
OTB Foundation’s Latest Initiative Helps Combat C-suite Gender Gap
Women’s Forum Recognizing Companies Striving to Attain Gender Parity on Corporate Boards
Amid Strides in LGBTQ Worker Rights, Fashion’s Culture Still Too Gendered
