A new practitioner's guide has been released recently to help organizations worldwide create opportunities for women, adopt best practices in sustainability reporting, and improve companies’ bottom lines. The report, entitled "Embedding Gender in Sustainability Reporting" discusses the value of creating business opportunities for women, provides guidance on improving gender management through sustainability reporting and helps improve the quality and scope of gender reporting.

The report was put together by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) , a member of the World Bank Group, and the Global Reporting Initiative. IFC Director for Environment and Social Development, Greg Radford, was reported to have said, “At IFC we are committed to better integrating gender issues in our work and as this guide shows.  Rewards from measuring gender practices and taking action accordingly can come in all shapes, from better staff morale to increased productivity. It can result in greater recognition in the marketplace, more support from local communities, increase in sales, better access to export markets, and attraction of new investments.”

The publication complements the Globar Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Framework, the widely used and recognised global framework for nonfinancial reporting. GRI’s Chief Executive, Ernst R. Ligteringen, was quoted as saying, “We are delighted to be able to provide companies with practical, hands-on guidance on how to measure and disclose their performance on gender, enabling them to embed gender issues within their reporting on corporate economic, environmental, and social performance.”  

In putting together the report, input from a range of stakeholders was evaluated. Their feedback was collected during a series of international consultation workshops with business, civil society, investors, and labor representatives.