Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

As we work in diverse teams across geographies, cultures and professional areas, inclusive leadership is something we expect from ourselves and each other. In our leadership platform, we express this as leveraging the power of differences. From experience we know that diverse and inclusive teams are key to innovate and profitably grow our business while simultaneously address our ambitious climate targets. Since 2021 we have public DEI Targets in place. The targets are set for 2025 and include: inclusive work environment for all, balanced gender representation in leadership and acceleration of under-represented groups. We are happy to see that our work was recognized by Financial Times, two years in a row.

Inclusion is foundational as it allows people to thrive and fully contribute to the organization. Thus, ensuring an inclusive work environment for all, is our first ambition. An inclusive workplace for all – means people of all genders, ethnic and racial identities, nationalities, sexual orientation, generations, and abilities. We measure this target through questions on DEI in our global engagement survey. 

Our second aspiration is on gender is to have a gender balanced leadership on all levels. Here we already have set a sharp target: to have a gender distribution within the 40-60 interval on all leadership levels by 2025. We want to point out that the ultimate gender balance is 50/50, but this target allows for some flexibility (at least 40 % of either men or women). 

The third priority is to accelerate under-represented groups. By this priority we recognize that we may also need to increase representation in relation to other aspects of diversity, for instance people from ethnically or racially marginalized communities. However, here the work needs to depart from the demographic set-up of our different markets and specific local needs. 

To leverage the latest research and tap into best practice and concrete DEI tools, we are a global supporter of Catalyst. In addition, our DEI work is guided by our commitment to SDG no 5 on gender equality as well as our partnership with United Nations Foundation, including their campaign #Equaleverywhere.

In 2023 we are running Courageous Conversations across Essity. In this initiative we take an outside-in-approach using selected DEI data recognized by United Nations (UN) to raise awareness on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and reinforce an inclusive culture. Conversations are facilitated by our global community of facilitators. Topics that we address are inclusion from a gender-, racial/ethnic identities-, LGBTQ+ -, generations/age-, and abilities perspective. Complementing the actual conversations, we will also raise awareness via a podcast featuring different Essity employees.