Month: May 2024

For the 15th year in a row, Jacksonville’s First Coast Worksite Wellness Council (FCWWC) has honored Regency Centers with the First Coast Healthiest Companies award. Regency reached the Platinum level — the highest level of the award — for its ninth consecutive year, and is one of just 20 companies to earn this achievement.

This award recognizes companies that are committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of their employees. Platinum award winners have best-in-class wellness programs and facilitate a culture of health within their organizations, as demonstrated by robust programming that supports multiple pillars of well-being (e.g., physical, mental, social).

Prioritizing a Culture of Wellness

At Regency Centers, we prioritize our people’s safety, health, and overall well-being. Our comprehensive benefits package addresses four main categories of wellness.

Physical health: Empowering employees to adopt positive habits and maintain a healthy lifestyleFinancial security: Improving quality of life and alleviating stress associated with financial insecurityEmotional balance: Providing tools and resources to build resiliency and support mental wellnessConnected community: Building a strong community and fostering positive social interactions

Among the programs that have earned Regency this honor are an annual Health Fair and a partnership that offers biometric screening and incentives for employees to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Virgin Pulse®, a complimentary online platform, provides our employees with access to tools that focus on health and wellness education and awareness. We also offer a Health Savings Account (HSA) Fund and Health Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA), and provide access to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health counseling.

It’s a great honor to receive another Platinum award for being among Northeast Florida’s healthiest companies,” said Reese Dowell, Senior Manager of Compensation and Benefits. “This award underscores Regency’s commitment to providing best-in-class programs that create a healthy and supportive workplace culture. We’re proud to have a leadership team who supports investing in resources that help us design, implement, and measure programs to improve the overall health and well-being of our employees and this win demonstrates our ongoing dedication.

We evaluate our benefit offerings yearly and look for opportunities to align further with our employees’ needs. In 2022, we expanded our dental benefits to three preventive care cleanings per year and periodontal implants as a ‘Major’ added coverage. Furthermore, short-term disability weekly payout and paid parental leave increased.

Learn more about Regency’s commitment to health, wellness, and Corporate Responsibility here.

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CARE has supported 16.5 million women and girls to increase their empowerment & gender equality since 2015. What do we mean by this? More girls and women are speaking out about the issues that affect them, making decisions about their homes and family as equals with their partners, working together for change in their communities, accessing services which meet their needs, and so much more.

At CARE, gender equality isn’t just another program. Gender is at the core of our Vision 2030 Strategy and embedded within everything that we do. But more than this, we see women and girls as the driving force able to create a fairer and better world for all. Our approach to Gender Equality programming focuses on reducing gender-based violence (GBV), promoting women’s voice and leadership (WVL), and ensuring access to inclusive education. But beyond this, we intentionally address the root causes of gender inequality by centering gender equality in our programs across all sectors.

Our recently published Gender Equality Annual Report summarizes CARE’s progress towards our goal, highlighting impact data reported in CARE’s Project& Program Information and Impact Reporting System (PIIRS) in FY 2022 (July 2021 – June 2022) and drawing on insights from CARE’s Vision 2030 learning review in 2023.

What we have achieved?

Women and girls are influencing decisions which affect their lives:
871,000 people were impacted by specific changes related to Women’s Voice and Leadership, including 144,000 women and girls reporting confidence in their own negotiation and communication skills and 101,000 women and girls influencing public decision-making and structural changes in their communities.Women and girls at risk of violence feel safer and can access services:
500,000 people have been impacted by specific changes related to gender-based violence. This includes people accessing GBV response services in development and humanitarian settings, and more people rejecting violence. In Bangladesh, the Prohori project worked with more than 44,000 people to shift social norms which normalize intimate partner violence. Women reported reduced intimate partner violence and an increased ability to speak up about their rights.Girls are overcoming barriers to accessing education and improving their prospects: 735,000 people were impacted by specific changes related to education such as schools addressing the specific needs of girls. In Somalia, more girls are enrolling in school and fewer are dropping out as a result of the Adolescent Girls’ Education in Somalia project (AGES) project, despite the shocks of COVID and the worst drought in 40 years.Humanitarian aid is reaching the most vulnerable: 135,000 people in emergency contexts obtained access to lifesaving GBV prevention and response services, while 415,000 people were supported through gender-sensitive assistance in the form of cash or vouchers.Projects across all sectors are improving gender equality: Nearly 3/4 of CARE projects reporting impact in 2022 – across sectors including health, climate, agriculture, and livelihoods – were able to report at least one change related to gender equality. This includes 1.1 million more women able to meet family planning needs, 431,000 more women participating in decisions about agricultural production and household income, 102,000 more women with increased capability to participate equitably in economic activities and 23,000 more women actively participating in climate decision-making spaces.

How did we get there? 

Considering GBV risks across any sector: CARE has made a concerted effort to amplify impact through new guidance addressing gender-based violence in both development and emergency settings. 65% of all CARE programs fully or partially addressed GBV.Engaging men and boys for gender equality: We are strengthening our focus on the role of men and boys in promoting gender equality with new guidance to amplify our impact. 80% of all CARE programs fully or partially engaged men and boys.Challenging harmful social norms: CARE views the shifting of harmful social norms as key to promoting gender equality, and we are further examining how social norms approaches are improving the lives of women and girls across more sectors. 43% of all CARE programs worked to address social norms.Embedding gender best practices in other programs: Our analysis showed that combining CARE’s VSLA groups with gender equality programming
can create transformative change in social norms, women’s household decision-making, and access to capital. We’re working to expand this across all our savings groups and embed within other program areas.Centering gender in our teams, strategies and processes: Our
GoDeeper Initiative is leading commitment to gender at the Country Office level by developing focused gender strategies, increasing opportunities for staff development, shifting internal ways of working and strengthening technical expertise on proven approaches for placing gender at the center of our programs and operations.Shifting power to feminist organizations: Programs like Feminists in Action
are finding new ways to support women’s rights organizations to strengthen their actions.

How we are leading change?

We are devoted to being a leader in our approaches to Gender Equality. This is what we are focusing on in 2023 and beyond.

Increasing our focus on digital inclusion to bridge the gender digital divide.Intensifying our support to women’s rights organizations and networks of women leading change.Building understanding of social norms impact across sectors.Strengthening our focus on gender in humanitarian response efforts.Deepening the evidence for how gender equality leads to further impact.Looking ahead to the future trends we will need to respond to as we work towards our goal of greater gender equality for all.

Want to learn more?

Read the Full Report Read a 2-page summary of the report in all four CARE languages:
Arabic, Spanish, French and English. 

Special thanks to Maya Kuwahara and Carly Paul for their support drafting this review.

May 28, 2024 /3BL/ – The IFRS Foundation and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are deepening their working relationship, building upon the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2022. This collaboration seeks to provide a seamless, global and comprehensive sustainability reporting system for companies looking to meet the information needs of both investors and a broader range of stakeholders.

The increased collaboration will optimize how GRI and ISSB Standards can be used together to facilitate reporting on an organization’s impacts, risks and opportunities, including risks that arise from the organization’s impacts.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB) have committed to jointly identify and align common disclosures that address information needs under the distinct scopes and purposes of their respective standards, for both thematic and sector-based standard setting. An initial outcome of the collaboration will involve a methodology pilot building on the recently published GRI 101 Biodiversity Standard and the ISSB’s upcoming project on Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services.

The ISSB and the GSSB will continue to make decisions separately in accordance with their established standard-setting due processes, including public consultation in respect of any proposed amendments to their respective standards regarding the alignment of common disclosures.

Chair of the IFRS Foundation Trustees, Erkki Liikanen said: 

“In March 2022, the IFRS Foundation Trustees signed a Memorandum of Understanding with GRI in recognition of the importance of ensuring compatibility and interconnectedness between our respective standards to benefit report preparers and users around the world. The IFRS Foundation Trustees believe today’s agreement solidifies and advances that MoU so that together we can reduce duplication, fragmentation and complexity in the sustainability disclosure landscape.” 

Eelco van der Enden, CEO of GRI said:

“GRI is fully committed to working with key partners to increase transparency by organizations around the world for their impacts, which cannot be achieved without consistent and clear sustainability reporting. From the outset, our collaboration with the IFRS Foundation has been built on a desire to ensure that GRI and ISSB standards can be used seamlessly together so that sustainability reporting is streamlined and robust. The announcement today marks an important step towards making that a reality.”

Carol Adams, Chair of the GSSB said:

“The joint-working between the GSSB and ISSB seeks to foster closer integration on standard setting while reinforcing our distinct yet complementary positions within the global corporate reporting landscape. This new agreement recognizes our commitment to enhancing disclosures on an organization’s most significant impacts, as well as their sustainability-related risks and opportunities. The next stage, starting with biodiversity, builds momentum towards a fully aligned global standards system. We believe reporters and stakeholders, including investors, will welcome this step.”

ISSB Chair, Emmanuel Faber said:

“As the ISSB moves into its next phase of work, including looking at nature and human capital and enhancing the SASB Standards, this advanced collaboration with GRI will strengthen our work. The ISSB’s focus continues to be on meeting the information needs of capital markets. Through this collaboration companies that wish to apply both the ISSB and GRI Standards to facilitate reporting to a broader range of stakeholders will be able to do so in a seamless way. My thanks to GRI and the GSSB for their ongoing partnership.”

The ISSB will continue to focus on meeting the information needs of investors about organizations’ sustainability-related risks and opportunities – more specifically, meeting the common information needs of primary users as defined in ISSB Standards.

The GSSB will continue to focus on meeting the needs of a broad range of stakeholders, including investors, about organizations’ most significant impacts on the economy, environment and people, and contribution to sustainable development.

In November 2023, GRI announced the launch of the Sustainability Innovation Lab (SIL) based in Singapore, in coordination with the IFRS Foundation. The SIL is bringing together global and local partners to advance capabilities for reporting using the GRI Standards and the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.

In January 2024, the IFRS Foundation and GRI jointly published an analysis and mapping resource: Interoperability considerations for GHG emissions when applying GRI Standards and ISSB Standards.