Priorities of gender policies and ESG targets in Russian public companies’ non-financial reports

Abstract

The article analyzes the reports of publicly traded Russian companies with a high level of capitalization Sber, Gazprom, Yandex and SIBUR for their gender policy and ESG goals. The incompleteness of non-financial information provided by companies means that when there is information about the ratio of women to men in the company, reports are not an accurate and comprehensive source of understanding how gender policy develops within the company. Reporting Russian public companies are consistent in their history of opening non-financial information, though there is a lack of direct recommendation and instruction from Russia’s adjustment organizations on how to make the process of reporting to be accurate. However, there is a lot of potential for improvement in terms of mainstreaming gender policy priorities and ESG goals: companies do not disclose the full amount of data specified in key documents describing global gender policy priorities; they do not always take into account Russia’s reporting to the UN on the progress of development the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; rarely declare measures to deal with gender inequality issues.