Businesses leading the way

 Progressive businesses understand that helping to dismantle barriers to women goes hand in hand with sustainable business and economic returns. Some companies are thus taking more transformational approaches that go beyond CSR. They are analysing and changing their core business structure and practices, whether by providing their employees with access to childcare, to family friendly benefits, or safe transport to and from work.
There are also promising developments in investment circles with a growing group of ‘gender-lens’ investors who are using gender analysis to drive financial returns and benefit women and girls. As they point out, it is not enough to invest in women and girls as if they were commodities, or to teach them to operate within the existing economic and financial systems. Instead, gender analysis should be used as a tool for changing the system, looking at what is valued, and how this guides investment priorities and shapes business and economies of today and tomorrow.

http://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/womens_rights_on-line_version_2.1.pdf