ABB Signs UN Women’s Empowerment Principles

On International Women’s Day, ABB committed to another important step on the way to strengthening gender diversity as part of its Global Diversity & Inclusion Strategy 2030. ABB has recently adopted the United Nations (UN) Women’s Empowerment Principles in order to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace and community.

Established by UN Global Compact and UN Women and in line with the 2030 Agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the principles were established to offer businesses practices in a multistakeholder approach that empower women.

“At ABB, we see diversity as a core strength. Gender diversity is a key goal of our people and sustainability strategies, and we aim to increase the number of women in senior management roles as well as female early talents,” said ABB CEO Björn Rosengren.

Sima Bahous, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women, said: “We congratulate ABB for taking the first step on their Women’s Empowerment Principles journey. We consider ABB a key partner in closing gender gaps in the workplace, marketplace and community and in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.”

In the context of this year’s International Women’s Day, ABB has also expanded the company’s Gender Equality Week with the aim to further strengthen gender equality both within the workplace and in society, and to raise awareness among its employees against unconscious bias, stereotypes and discrimination. A wide range of activities through the Gender Equality Week includes a virtual meeting with ABB executives, employees and UN Women representatives, as well as unconscious bias webinars and other activities. Already more than 7,500 senior managers at ABB have taken part in unconscious bias training so far.

Gender equality is one of the key goals of ABB’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Strategy 2030 through which the company plans to attract the best team of talents in its industry and ensure the same development and career opportunities for everyone. As part of this, ABB wants to double the proportion of women in senior management positions worldwide by 2030 to 25 percent. In 2021, ABB increased the number of female senior managers to 16.3 percent, up from 13.5 percent in 2020.

Another recent milestone in ABB’s efforts to foster an even more diverse and inclusive culture was the successful introduction of a new worldwide gender-neutral parental leave program, granting for all ABB employees 12 weeks of paid leave for primary caregivers and four weeks for second caregivers.

As part of ABB’s commitment to promote social progress and diversity and inclusion, ABB is partnering with a large number of international organizations, such as global non-profit Catalyst, Stonewall, Society of Women Engineers, and the World Economic Forum. In addition, since 2021 ABB is official global partner of the FIA Girls on Track program which offers girls aged 8-18 the opportunity to learn about the world of motorsport with the aim of increasing female participation in the sector – both on and off track. ABB also contributes to social progress through community-building initiatives, focused on education, diversity and inclusion and care in the community.

To ensure that sustainability is taken as seriously as other performance targets, ABB is integrating sustainability KPIs into its performance management planning and businesses are reporting them at the same time as financial KPIs. Sustainability KPIs are now also part of senior management incentives and a selection is included in ABB’s quarterly financial reports.