Gender equality, and non-discrimination based on sex are central human rights in themselves, not additional issues to be added on to other human rights. I think it will be important to reference the various international human rights instruments within which these are enshrined (UN an ILO). Corporate human rights due diligence processes will be deemed deficient if they do not address the core internationally recognised human rights, including gender equality/ non-discrimination.

I think you have made a good start . Gender Mainstreaming  practice suggests that the collection of gender disaggregated data is a basic building block for an ongoing gender analysis, including gender impact analysis of policy and practice. This applies to corporate policy and practice. See for example "Women, communities and mining: The gender impact of mining and the role of gender impact assessment". Oxfam Australia (2009).

Another essential element of gender mainstreaming is ensuring that women's as well as men's voices are heard in policy making and evaluation. This will be essential in the process of developing and assessing corporate human rights policy, practice and impacts. Guidance about gender equality in corporate stakeholder engagement has been given by a number of bodies, including the IFC "Stakeholder Engagement: A good practice handbook for companies doing business in emerging markets" (2008)

The issue of community impacts is complex and multifaceted. I think your example here is slightly misleading as community impacts extend beyond the issues of paid work, to corporate impacts upon all the activities that women, as well as men, undertake in the process of reproduction of the workforce and the community, such as growing food, access to water, housing, a safe environment etc. See for example "Why gender matters. A resource guide for integrating gender considerations into communities work at Rio Tinto".  http://www.csrm.uq.edu.au/docs/Rio_Tinto_gender_guide.pdf

Corporate human rights impacts are also workplace impacts of course - thus non-discrimination in employment and pay is a key human rights issue for all companies in relation to their direct employees, and the impacts they have through their procurement in the supply chain. There has been a lot of research on gender equality in the supply chain and on ways to address this. See for example the work of the Ethical Trading Initiative in the UK (e.g. "Report on the ETI impact assessment 2006, The ETI code of labour practice: Do workers really benefit?"). See also work on participatory auditing processes, and on issues relating to informal workers in the supply chain - e.g. Hale, A and Oppondo, M (2005) Humanizing the Cut Flower Chain: Confronting the Realities of Flower Production for Workers in Kenya. Antipode. Also Barrientos et al (2003) A gendered value chain approach to codes of conduct in african horticulture. World Development, 31 (9) pp.1511-26.  

Women's human rights include the issue of violence against women. There are many issues to address here. These have been recognised as relating to corporate impacts in a number of ways - e.g. see both the Rio Tinto report and the Oxfam report referenced above, as well as numerous academic reports - see for example Pearson, Ruth (2007) "Beyond women workers: gendering csr". Third World Quarterley, 28:4 pp.731-749.

I think your question above relating to 'society' which asks 'Is there institutionalized gender discrimination?' is slightly naive! It is because gender discrimination is institutionalized in all societies in a variety of ways that we have needed international human rights instruments to help address it.

Thanks for opening up this discussion and I look forward to hearing what others have to say.  

Kate Grosser, ICCSR, Nottingham University Business School

While gender disaggregated data in sustainability reports is currently rarely reported, the demand for gender related information in sustainability reports was expressed by workshop participants in a consultative process undertaken to support the development of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and IFC publication “Embedding Gender in Sustainability Reporting, A Practitioners’ Guide”.  These workshops were held between December 2008 and April 2009 in London, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, New Delhi, and Washington DC.

The key conclusion drawn in the GRI/IFC international multi-stakeholder consultation process was the need to initiate a formal international multi-stakeholder working group process to develop recommendations for gender related edits to the GRI G3 Guidelines, the world’s most widely used framework for sustainability reporting. This process is underway and the GRI Gender Working Group has formulated a series of formal recommendations of gender related updates to the G3 Guidelines, which are currently available for public comment at: http://www.globalreporting.org/CurrentPriorities/GenderandReporting/

In the discussions held during both of these processes, participants reached consensus in support of the proposition that companies should not create, contribute to, or exacerbate gender discrimination. Furthermore, they noted that it can be beneficial for companies to routinely measure and analyze the differential impacts of its policies and practices on both women and men.  Indeed, it was agreed that these impacts are not restricted to the work place, but also to the impacts of an organization in its interaction with its supply chain, the local community, its investors and also consumers.   

The need for gender disaggregated data to be reported on some key performance indicators was recommended to assist organizations in publicly demonstrating their accountability to women, to identify potential gender discrimination as a results of the effects of an organizations operations, products and services, and to understand how a reporting organization is positively contributing to gender equality within its sphere of influence. It should be noted that the recently launched UNIFEM and UNGC Women’s Empowerment Principles refer to reporting on gender information in principle 7 is “Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality”.

The GRI Working Group and workshop participants agreed that any organization’s performance on gender equality relates to the gender equality context in which it is operating. They stressed that it is useful to view any gender performance information in the context (both the society and the sector) the reporting organization operates.

Furthermore, it was also emphasized during the GRI consultation process, that it is not possible nor expected by stakeholders for companies to report gender performance information for every single potential gender related issue.  Therefore, it was recommended, in line with GRI’s reporting materiality principle, that companies determine, in consultation with their stakeholders, the materiality gender related issues that they should report on.

It is hoped that these findings supporting the propositions posed are useful input to this consultation. Thank you for providing such a platform for discussion.