Sustainability Council

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The Sustainability Council works actively both to develop the industry's own sustainability work in a positive direction and to highlight the industry as an enabler of sustainable development of the whole of society, with the ambition to be the entire IT and telecom industry's collective voice in the field of sustainability. The Council's members represent hardware and software suppliers as well as service companies.

Is it good or bad news that you earn more than me?

The proportion of women on the boards of listed companies is now at a record 30.7%, according to the Second AP Fund's annual women's index presented last week. The year before, the figure was 27.9 percent. This is good news and shows "a boost in development", said Eva Halvarsson, CEO of the Second AP Fund. "Bad news," said Annika Elias, chair of Ledarna , who sees no reason to have the patience to "wait 37 years" for Sweden to achieve gender equality.

At the same time, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise presented its report "Women in work and management in business", which they say shows that "the winds of change are blowing" based on the fact that the proportion of women in management is steadily increasing in the business world; now the proportion of women in management positions is almost as high (37%) as the proportion of women in the business world overall (39%). What the report also shows is that the share of women in CEO positions is just above 10% and has been so, with minor variations, since 1998. "No great force in the pace of change", could thus also be a true message. Today, the National Mediation Office presented the report "The gender pay gap 2015 - what do the official pay statistics say?". The headline and main message was that "The gender pay gap continues to narrow". Very true indeed. On the other hand, the fact that the decrease was 0.7 percentage points compared to the previous year, that the total gender pay gap across the economy was 12.5%, the unexplained gender pay gap was 4.6%, and that male graduates are paid more than female graduates in a third of the higher education institutions surveyed, means that the headline "Gender pay gap persists" would be at least as accurate. So what are we really saying? And what are we saying by how we say it? Does it matter? I'm pretty sure it does. For example, it is often said that the difference between a glass being half empty or half full is a matter of attitude. That may be so. But there is no way that someone's attitude determines whether the glass will ever be full, or even remain half full. Looking at things positively sounds good in principle, but does it encourage improvement? Does it make anyone actually do what is required - that is, refill that glass? Or, if you like, the right people to actively do what it takes to make us that equal country that harnesses - and fairly rewards - the skills of its entire population? I'm not so sure about that.  

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"Gender equality is not an HR issue", said CGI's Head of Sweden Pär Fors wisely during the seminar organized by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in connection with the release of the above-mentioned report. However, and unfortunately, apparently a women's issue, judging by the fact that the audience consisted of about 95% women.

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157 out of 3721 events during this year's Almedalen Week are in some way about gender equality - including this one: Womentor's seminar "A gender equal IT and telecom industry - vision or reality?" and of course the 5050 Club's mingle.

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