COULD gender equality benefit the world
by $28 trillion?
To mark International Women’s Day and B Corp month, Coutts brought together a panel of female entrepreneurs to discuss the power of diversity.
view our International
women's day and bcorp event
COULD gender equality benefit the world
by $28 trillion?
To mark International Women’s Day and B Corp month, Coutts brought together a panel of female entrepreneurs to discuss the power of diversity.
view our International
women's day and bcorp event
The Panel
- Maxine Laceby – Co-Founder at beauty firm Absolute Collagen
- Liane Kynaston, sustainability lead at Absolute Collagen
- Tamara Lohan MBE – Founder & CEO at hotel lovers club Mr & Mrs Smith
- Sally Pacy – Founder at production company Fifty Fifty
- Annabel Thomas – Founder at whisky distillery Nc’nean
Lilian Chovin, Head of Asset Allocation at Coutts, says, “We believe it’s best to stay focused on the future when investing – we recommend looking ahead five years or more. How do markets look over the longer term? How does that match with what you want from your money over time?”Stagflation became financially synonymous with the difficulties the UK and other economies faced in the 1970s. The oil producing organisation OPEC embargoed oil exports to many western nations, pushing up oil and energy prices dramatically. The rise in the cost of living, fuelled in part by wage price spirals, coincided with stagnant economic growth, and unemployment was high while things got more expensive. This resulted in stagflation.
Although we currently have an energy shock, especially in Europe, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the main driver of today’s inflation pressures was the pandemic. It led to a large demand for goods when strained and locked-down supply chains couldn’t cope.
THE DISCUSSION
A report by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2015 found that a “full potential scenario” in which women participated in the economy identically to men could increase annual global GDP by up to an extra $28 trillion by 2025 – a 26% rise equivalent to the combined economies of China and the US. This flagship figure remains an indicator of what could be possible by increasing gender equality – in March 2023 it was cited by the Foreign & Commonwealth and Development Office in their Women & Girls Strategy. Similarly, a Moody’s Analytics paper published in March 2023 entitled Close the Gender Gap to Unlock Productivity Gains asserted that the global economy could gain $7 trillion a year by increasing gender equality.
However, according to a United Nations report from 2020, women are more likely to live in extreme poverty than men. And unsurprisingly, the report identifies gender inequality as one of the main barriers to advancing sustainable development.
Our panel of female entrepreneurs, all of whom lead companies which are certified B Corps, discussed this juxtaposition alongside the B Corp mission to realise the interconnected nature of sustainability, diversity and equality – and how understanding that can lead to better businesses and better societies.
Find out more about how Coutts supports greater diversity and sustainability:
Lilian Chovin, Head of Asset Allocation at Coutts, says, “We believe it’s best to stay focused on the future when investing – we recommend looking ahead five years or more. How do markets look over the longer term? How does that match with what you want from your money over time?”Stagflation became financially synonymous with the difficulties the UK and other economies faced in the 1970s. The oil producing organisation OPEC embargoed oil exports to many western nations, pushing up oil and energy prices dramatically. The rise in the cost of living, fuelled in part by wage price spirals, coincided with stagnant economic growth, and unemployment was high while things got more expensive. This resulted in stagflation.
Although we currently have an energy shock, especially in Europe, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the main driver of today’s inflation pressures was the pandemic. It led to a large demand for goods when strained and locked-down supply chains couldn’t cope.
