Calvert Women's Principles: 20 years of Leadership

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Calvert Women's Principles (CWP), established as a partnership between Calvert Research and Management and UN Women in 2004. They remain the first global code of corporate conduct focused exclusively on advancing, protecting, and investing in women.

The CWP offer companies a clear set of standards to measure their progress in seven areas:

• Employment and compensation
• Work-life balance and career development
• Health, safety and freedom from violence
• Management and governance
• Business, supply chain and marketing practices
• Civic and community engagement
• Transparency and accountability

They also provide investors with concrete indicators to assess the evolution of gender equity in the corporate community. Corporations are key players in the global economy—often more powerful than sovereign governments and other institutions. The CWP and successor initiatives are designed to help companies be more systematic in making women's empowerment a reality.

The financial materiality of gender diversity

Calvert has made diversity - both gender and ethnic/racial - a primary focus of its proprietary research that aims to paint a clearer picture as to the current state of play, the financial materiality of being a leader or laggard on diversity issues, and other key impacts.

Our research, along with numerous academic studies, indicate that diversity, equity and inclusion factors (DEI) are financially material. Since 2020, we've seen marked improvements in corporate DEI performance worldwide. We have continually refined our methodology to recognize those gains and promote ongoing improvement. Our methodological enhancements help us to identify leaders and improvers, and reflect the flexibility and dynamism of our responsible investment research process.

Calvert's stewardship and engagement efforts focus on improving corporate behavior on a range of gender issues. We believe long-term oriented, responsible investors should demand greater disclosure and performance from companies on programs to attract, retain and promote diverse talent. In addition, Calvert has actively encouraged our holdings to formally commit to board-level racial/ethnic, and gender diversity performance improvements where appropriate.

Where we're going

We are pleased to observe meaningful improvements on closing the gender gap since the initial launch of the Calvert Women's Principles, but there is still a long way for corporations to go to fully tap into the diverse talent pool of their surrounding demographics. We are closely watching a few areas in particular where we expect to see companies improve in the coming years:

• Progress on gender and ethnic diversity representation in senior and executive leadership: Gender diversity at these levels lags the progress we've seen at the board level. We expect to see more progress in coming years, with professional development programs advancing all employees across the corporate ladder.
• More pay gap data: As more countries start to mandate that companies disclose their gender pay gaps, Calvert will monitor the evolving legislations and data availability.
• Greater work-life balance: Post-pandemic, worker expectations in many industries shifted toward improved work-life balance, greater flexibility, increased compensation and stronger company cultures. We will be looking to see whether worker shortages will compel companies to pursue policies offering greater flexibility and improved compensation to attract and retain talent, fill frontline positions, and bring more women back into the workforce.

For more information about the history and business case behind their development and adoption of the Calvert Women's Principles, as well as our work on gender diversity issues today, read the full whitepaper.

Prior to making any investment decision, investors should carefully review the strategy's relevant offering document. For the complete content and important disclosures, refer to the white paper "Calvert Women’s Principles: 20 years of Leadership".