From the Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and global protests against racial injustice have shed light on the deep and widening nature of structural racism in the European Union (EU). The EU’s increased attention and political commitments in response to BLM protests, including the adoption of the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan, are welcome developments after a decade of limited action in the field of racial justice.

This heightened grassroots, political and institutional attention to structural racism in Europe presents an opportunity for the EU to change course and provide a meaningful route toward equality and justice.

However, the actions undertaken will only be effective in achieving racial justice and meaningful progress if they address structural and institutional racism and include racialised communities in such efforts. This requires a significant shift in EU policy, to better reflect the needs and reality of the situation of racialised communities in Europe today.

To achieve this, Equinox proposes a new policy approach to addressing structural racism and inequality in the EU. This report focuses on specific recommendations for change within EU institutions. Equinox will soon release recommendations on the major “racial justice focal points” for EU policy: climate and environmental justice, gender, law enforcement, and migration.

This paper outlines the main institutional changes that need to take place for the EU to implement structural change for racialised communities in the EU.

From FCDO/DIT and Palladium. Despite Black female entrepreneurs being one of the fastest growing entrepreneur groups in the US, they receive a disproportionately small amount of investment. In 2019, less than 9% of investment went to female founders, and less than 3% went to founders of color in the US. In the UK, only 0.5% of start-ups with Black founders received VC investment. Recent studies have shown the importance of diversity in building more equitable societies. Investment rates and current trends suggest Black Female Entrepreneurs’ (BFEs) fair access to investment resources requires attention. Despite Black female entrepreneurs being one of the fastest growing entrepreneur groups in the US, they receive a disproportionately small amount of investment. In 2019, less than 9% of investment went to female founders, and less than 3% went to founders of color in the US. In the UK, only 0.5% of start-ups with Black founders received VC investment.

Recent studies have shown the importance of diversity in building more equitable societies. Investment rates and current trends suggest Black Female Entrepreneurs’ (BFEs) fair access to investment resources requires attention.

The FCDO/DIT partnered with Palladium Impact Capital to conduct a market study examining the barriers to investment that BFEs experience in the UK and the US, and potential pathways to removing them.

The Diversity Forum is a collective on a mission to drive inclusive social investment in the UK, through the convening of sector-wide groups, commissioning research, and knowledge sharing.

From Harvard Business Review. Iceland’s equal pay for equal work system is still in the early stages, but initial signs suggest that requiring organizations prove they compensate employees fairly may be very effective. Much more effective, in any case, than the alternatives currently in place elsewhere. Introduced in 2018, the policy requires companies and institutions with more than 25 employees to prove that they pay men and women equally for a job of equal value. If companies show they pay equally for the same positions, they receive certification. Beginning in 2020, certification became a requirement and companies without certification incur a daily fine. The few issues that have thus far emerged, such as the burdensomeness of the process for managers, are start-up problems, moreover, not long-term consequences. And what’s more: the system has stimulated both-in-firm and societal discussions about how jobs are valued, based on what criteria, and whether these criteria are still relevant in the current society and labor market.

From the European Commission. The EU taxonomy is a classification system, establishing a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities. The EU taxonomy is an important enabler to scale up sustainable investment and to implement the European Green Deal. Notably, by providing appropriate definitions to companies, investors and policymakers on which economic activities can be considered environmentally sustainable, it is expected to create security for investors, protect private investors from greenwashing, help companies to plan the transition, mitigate market fragmentation and eventually help shift investments where they are most needed.

The Commission is currently preparing an IT tool that will facilitate the use of the taxonomy by allowing users to navigate easily through the taxonomy. The tool will be available from the beginning of 2021.

From Nordea Markets. Companies with a more gender-balanced leadership have more stable returns. That’s the result of an analysis by Nordea Markets based on a sample of 100 Nordic blue-chip companies that examined how gender diversity affects the performance, and hence value, of large companies.

The results, reported in the February 2018 issue of Nordea On Your Mind, showed that the companies with the most gender-diverse management had 40 percent lower volatility in ROCE (return on capital employed). The companies in the study with more gender-diverse boards of directors also had significantly lower volatility in returns, although the results were most striking at the group management level.

From the European Commission. This discussion paper argues that empowering women as founders and investors is crucial to the achievement of the InvestEU goals. InvestEU is the new investment programme to be launched in 2021 under the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework and financed by the Next Generation EU, aimed at mobilising private and public investment in Europe for more sustainable, inclusive and innovative growth.

Women tend to be associated with long-term, patient capital and more social-impact investment. Women’s wealth is on the rise and represents a huge economic opportunity to accelerate change towards a more diverse and sustainable financial system.

The Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship (The Rose Review) was born out of a sense of frustration at the unacceptable disparity which exists between female and male entrepreneurs and the slow progress in closing this gap. The prize at stake is significant – representing £250 billion of economic potential for the UK. This progress report, published one years on, tracks progress against eight clear recommendations put forward in the original review, alongside what steps still need to be taken.

In partnership with MVISION, private equity research sponsors, the Private Equity Observatory at HEC Paris investigated the relationship between gender diversity and performance in the mature private equity markets of Europe and North America. The data set was 2,454 deals executed by 51 fund managers across 220 funds over 20 years. Based on these deals, the study made informed assumptions about the gender composition of investment committees using the data available.