Thursday 14 May 2020
Statkraft sets target for women in leadership
Alongside the 40% target, Statkraft is introducing measures to positively impact the diversity of its supply chain and encourage mentoring of colleagues and students.
A National Grid report published in January showed that a staggering 400,000 roles need to be filled in the UK’s NetZero workforce by 2050, whilst also highlighting the current lack of diversity in the sector.
David Flood, Managing Director of Statkraft said: “I have no doubt that this commitment will deliver a long-term gain for Statkraft.
“Empowering our staff is a vital part of our pledge, but the under-representation of women needs to be addressed above and beyond the workplace. Last year, women comprised only 22% of A level physics students, and 8% of apprentices related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Therefore we have also acknowledged our role in mentoring and inspiring more female students to pursue these subjects.
“With organisations such as POWERful Women dedicated to supporting organisations in the energy sector, we believe we are in a strong position to achieve our goal.”
Statkraft are inviting staff to collaborate on an action plan to address the multiple parts of the pledge, including how to improve existing career development activity for female employees.
The full pledge published with the POWERful Women Initiative is:
We are Europe’s largest generator of renewable energy, and pledge to deliver a diverse Net Zero workforce in the UK. We encourage a culture that capitalises on the diversity of our people and the inclusion of ideas and perspectives that challenge norms and drive innovation.
In our UK workforce, we aim to have 40% women in leadership positions by 2030. In our UK activities, we will encourage and influence our supply chain to promote diversity and inclusion, and support our staff to mentor and inspire more women to pursue STEM subjects.
The pledge is made to coincide with International Women’s Day (IWD), a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The IWD 2020 theme is “Each for Equal” and building a gender-equal world.
Louise Kingham, Board Member of POWERful Women and Chief Executive of the Energy Institute, said; “Having a leading energy business like Statkraft setting such an ambitious target on diversity in its leadership roles is to be applauded. It’s a great way to mark International Women’s Day. Statkraft clearly recognises the direct business benefits of diversity, and making a public pledge means that they are willing to be held accountable for progress and to lead by example.
"This is very welcome - unless the major employers across the whole UK energy sector follow this lead, we are not going to improve the frankly dismal state of play on diversity at the top of our industry, nor reap the benefits of better balance.”
Statistics from 2019 on gender balance at executive and board levels in the UK’s energy companies show that progress across the sector is slow:
- Women still occupy only 16% of board seats (a marginal increase from 13% in 2018);
- Women still occupy only 6% of executive board seats (no improvement);
- 42% of the companies have no women on their boards at all (a small improvement from 50% in 2018).
POWERful Women will be publishing updated statistics in early May 2020.
To date, 28 companies have made a POWERful Women pledge on improving the gender balance of their organisation and in 2018 a coalition of leading energy CEOs came together to make a public commitment to improve gender balance in their own companies and across the energy industry.
