Everyone can participate by being an ambassador for the community or by joining the list of women who work or have training directly linked to an ESG aspect.
Of civic origin and promoting gender diversity, while implementing an ESG culture. This is the motto of “Women in ESG Portugal” (WIESGPT), a project of three women who want to be comprehensive and involve society. To Ambiente Magazine, Alice Khouri, Filipa Pantaleão and Rita Rendeiro, founders of the project, say that the “multidisciplinary community” is open to all who “believe in gender equality as an essential vector of effective sustainability (economic, environmental, social and governance).
But what is “Women in ESG Portugal”?
“It is a civic initiative that aims, through values such as gender equality and technical capacity building, to create a multidisciplinary community to help Portugal advance in gender diversity while implementing an ESG culture more quickly within existing community requirements,” say the founders. The idea came from the experiences of the three women who realized that “there is still an inequality gap between men and women, especially in the corporate/business world”, despite the fact that women have “much of the technical knowledge and experience necessary to implement ESG parameters. Therefore, more than unfair, the unequal market practice also reflects an inefficient and harmful behavior to the country”. In its genesis, the movement did not count with the support of any company or institution, but the founders hope that “several will take part in the consolidation of the community”.
This “unequal practice” is seen by the “greater imbalance” in a “market that values more, in terms of remuneration and strategic or decision-making position, the male gender, and the qualities that are traditionally attributed to it”. Citing data from the Gender Equality Index 2021, promoted by the European Institute for Gender Equality, Portugal “is below the European average”, below countries like France and Ireland.
Therefore, the movement defends concrete measures to “reverse the current bias and generate greater confidence and more career prospects for women”, creating the scenario to enhance “a better gender distribution” in terms of “progression, executive positions and remuneration” in a short period of time. These measures include the application of the European Parliament’s directive, in which, until 2026, “publicly traded companies in Portugal must have, at least, 40% of their directors in the total of the under-represented gender (women) or 33% of their executive directors with this representativeness” and the “data transparency that is required mainly in the governance aspect of ESG”.
Besides advocating for measures, the movement believes that through the dissemination of knowledge, “allied to the value of gender equality and consolidation of good practices”, change is possible. Therefore, WIESGPT promotes actions, such as an event on March 2nd, which will involve meetings and talks that will be translated into “documents with the synthesized conclusions and propositions to be delivered to the European Parliament or National Assembly according to the theme”, and that will be recorded in a podcast. In addition, there will be a biweekly opinion column in the digital newspaper ECO and that “can be used by any woman on the list who is interested in uncomplicating some ESG theme for society” and several documents and reports on gender equality. Thus, Alice Khouri, Filipa Pantaleão and Rita Rendeiro believe that the change for an effective sustainability “starts in people, individually, and reaches companies and public bodies at an institutional level”.
Everyone can participate by being an ambassador for the community or by joining the list of women who work or have training directly linked to an ESG aspect, and can sign up on the community’s official website at www.winesgpt.com.
