Diversity and Inclusion
Taking a stand against racism
The death of George Floyd ignited the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, prompting a heightened focus on the racism and injustice that prevails throughout society. ENGIE North America — inspired by employees who shared feedback and opinions on racial injustice and equality — led an effort among the clean energy sector to take a stand on the issue. Together, along with 29 other industry leaders, ENGIE North America pledged to stand in solidarity for racial justice and equality, committing to listening, learning and working together to take meaningful action for lasting change.
The Black ENGIE Employee Network (B.E.E.N) creates and supports an inclusive, equitable, and nurturing work culture to influence and support ENGIE North America’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and help others gain a greater understanding of the issues confronting the Black community. This group is part of our employee resources group network and helps advance networking, professional development and recruiting efforts to foster greater diversity, equity and inclusion within our work environment.
In an effort to further best practices and better address challenges and opportunities, ENGIE North America hosted a Diversity and Inclusion Roundtable at the start of 2021, bringing together 27 organizations to discuss diversity, equity and inclusion.
Advancing efforts on gender equality
ENGIE North America held several gender-related events and piloted a mentoring program for women through the Women in Networking employee resource group in 2020. We also hosted all-hands training sessions with accomplished external speakers Lois Frankel and Liz Ngonzi to address gender issues.
On a global level, ENGIE is accelerating the integration of women through its Fifty-Fifty project, launched in 2020, to create the necessary conditions to achieve managerial parity by 2030 and to strengthen cultural anchoring and managerial practices over the long-term. In North America, we measure and monitor three key areas to ensure progress in this regard. As of early 2021, women make up 23.96% of our workforce, 25.17% of management positions and 30% of the ENGIE North America Executive Committee.
Empowering the LGBTQ community
ENGIE North America proudly demonstrated its commitment to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community by participating in the 2020 Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, a national measure of LGBTQ equality in the workplace. ENGIE North America earned a score of 90, illustrating how we promote an LGBTQ-friendly work environment.
Broadening resources available to employees
In an effort to increase the resources for employees to contribute to the success of the business, ENGIE North America established a Diversity and Inclusion Committee in 2020 with the goal of creating more opportunities to maximize the unique perspectives of our people and partners.
We expanded our employee resource groups (ERGs), which are all sponsored by a member of our executive team. In 2020, three new ERGs were formed, the Asian and Pacific Islanders, Black ENGIE Employee Network and Veterans ERG. All ERGs, which also include the Young Professionals Network, ENGIE Pride and Women in Networking, now meet in quarterly roundtables to collaborate, inspire and empower work across the organization to promote an inclusive culture.
ENGIE North America also introduced several new learning programs focused on diversity and inclusion in 2020 to reinforce shared values, positively promote key behaviors and raise awareness of unconscious bias that may occur in the workplace.
A focus on Asian and Pacific Islanders
The explosion of hate crimes against the Asian and Pacific Islander community triggered deep-seated emotions and memories. ENGIE North America shared in the devastation of many of our employees, thinking about the lives that were destroyed from the events over the last year.
With the introduction of the Asian and Pacific Islanders employee resource group in 2020, several activities have taken shape to help bring more awareness to the important cultural contributions of this minority group and to provide a greater voice for this marginalized segment. Among those activities included participating in an ENGIE Group-led event, Origami for Life, a global fundraising effort and art exhibition. For every origami bird that was created, ENGIE Foundation donated 1 euro to help provide food to those in need.
Remaining focused on supplier diversity
ENGIE North America tracks procurement from minority-, women-, LGBTQ- and veteran-owned enterprises as well as certified small businesses as part of our Supplier Diversity Program. This information gives us a better picture of the total spend with minority-owned businesses, while delivering insights into opportunities for improvement to ensure inclusivity in procurement decisions. As of early 2021, 330 suppliers have self-identified*, representing a total contracted amount of $67 million. The number of self-identified suppliers increased nearly 200% from 2019. Efforts are now underway to verify these self-identifications to validate our diverse supplier network.
*Suppliers requested to file EcoVadis CSR assessments
