From Morningstar:

Morningstar focuses on empowering investor success and democratizing investing. The company now emphasizes clear governance around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its impact indices help investors achieve positive outcomes and competitive returns. The financial services sector can use its platforms and partnerships to promote positive change and establish industry-wide standards for these issues.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are central to fostering a successful workplace. Morningstar’s Gender Diversity index family offers exposure to companies with strong gender diversity policies and uses the Equileap Gender Equality Scorecard to measure progress on DEI issues. DEI initiatives in the corporate sector are linked to better long-term performance, reflecting the importance of advancing gender equality.

Companies can foster DEI by creating a welcoming and empowering environment for all individuals and treating them fairly. The UK Gender Diversity index includes companies like AstraZeneca, Diageo, and NatWest, which stand out for their gender-equality policies and practices.

Beyond fostering DEI within companies, Morningstar’s DEI-focused indices can also effectuate governance changes and influence investor behavior. For example, campaigns by index fund giants have been linked to significant increases in female representation on US company boards.

The global index provider and champion of diversity and inclusion wants to use its research and indices to measure progress on key DEI issues and create industry-wide standards. Morningstar’s impact indices have the potential to effectuate broad-based governance changes within corporate firms and influence investor behavior.



Read more: How Can I Use Indexing to Understand Governance in DEI?