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International Women’s Day: “We are not there yet.“

People & Culture
7. March 2024

International Women's Day 2024: What are our goals at Greiner and how do we want to achieve them?

International Women’s Day: “We are not there yet.“
Stories

For over 100 years, we have been celebrating March 8 worldwide as a day for more equity and against discrimination against women. Sad, but true. Because we are still not where we should be in 2024.

Even today, women are still disadvantaged, ignored or simply not heard in many areas. To name just a few examples: The compatibility of family and career is primarily seen as a women’s issue, many family caregivers are women. Women still earn less than men – in the same positions!

At Greiner, we believe that it takes more than one day a year to draw attention to issues such as real equity and equal opportunities. It takes everyone involved to change this. And it needs clear targets and objectives – and strategies on how to achieve them. But we also know that we still have some work to do ourselves.

International Women’s Day
Sigrid Heinzle
Head of Strategic People & Culture, Greiner AG


"In addition to demands and wishes, International Women's Day is also an opportunity to celebrate women who fight for the cause every day! Forward-thinkers and doers who are committed, who make the impossible possible in everyday life and who dare to do things they were not expected to do. Equal opportunities is a challenge that we can only overcome together in numerous small and large steps!"

What are our goals and how do we want to achieve them?

In our „Blue Plan“ sustainability strategy, we have committed to achieving the following targets:

  • The share of women in management positions is 35% by 2025 and 40% by 2030 (as of 2022: 26%).
    – By 2025, the share of women in all areas of work outside of production will be 50% (2022: 44%).

We expect the latest female appointments to Greiner’s top management to send a strong and trend-setting signal: since March 1, 2024, Greiner AG has had a female CEO for the first time in Saori Dubourg. From this date, three of the six highest management positions in the Group will be held by women (one female CEO on the three-member Executive Board of Greiner AG and two female CEOs at the three divisional companies). At this management level, we have already met our self-imposed targets. However, this has nothing to do with quotas – Greiner CEO Saori Dubourg and CEOs Beatrix Praeceptor (Greiner Packaging, CEO since May 2, 2023) and Ilke Panzer (Greiner Bio-One, CEO since February 1, 2024) were simply the best candidates.

At the levels below this, we need to fill six out of ten vacant positions with women in order to achieve all our goals. We need to build this up internally and recruit externally, but above all we need to create a culture in which women are successful and enjoy working. At an international company like Greiner, there is also cultural diversity, as the challenges are often different in different countries. We also have to take this into account.

Greiner Nachhaltigkeitsteam Grafenhorst Stefan
International Women’s Day
Stefan Grafenhorst
Vice President People & Sustainability, Greiner AG

"It's a shame. Even in 2024, equity between men and women is still an issue. Unfortunately! You don't have to look far to see this. Gender pay gaps, an increased risk of poverty for women and violence against women are just some of the aspects of a lack of inequality that can be found around the world. As a company, the question for us is: what contribution can we as a company make to equal opportunities? Simply pointing out a lack of equal rights is not enough. Instead, the question must be: how can we overcome obstacles, promote participation and create a fair environment? We will have to measure ourselves against these questions."

Achieving equal opportunities
Equal opportunities are not something that happens automatically and overnight. As a company, we have to actively do something about it. We have already made a number of adjustments and established the following: signing the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, a strong commitment to gender equity in job advertisements, offering flexible working time models, childcare options, the possibility of job sharing and taking into account the safety and hygiene needs of our employees.

We have also described the Greiner Group’s attitude, expectations and requirements in this area in our Diversity, Fairness and Inclusion Policy. The policy serves as a guiding element for equal opportunities throughout the company. In addition to the “gender” dimension, it also covers all six other dimensions of diversity, fairness and inclusion.

We have been able to slightly increase the proportion of women at Greiner in recent years. Nevertheless, we still lack global, standardized concepts to help us achieve our targets. The first steps have been taken, but we still have a long way to go. That is why we are celebrating all women on International Women’s Day today – and on all other 364 days of the year.