EY Japan received Rainbow and Gold award in Pride Index 2021 for work to promote LGBT+ inclusion

On Thursday, 11 November 2021, EY Japan received the Gold award in Pride Index 2021, an indicator of how companies have implemented initiatives to promote LGBT+ inclusion in the workplace, for 5 consecutive years. EY Japan also received the Rainbow award, newly-introduced this year to recognize companies that have promoted initiatives with collective impact. EY Japan is delighted to receive both Gold and Rainbow awards in recognition of our proactive attempts to work across sectors in order to deepen understanding of the LGBT+ community and advocate for social equity.

The awards were in recognition of EY initiatives which include:

• Conducting anti-discrimination trainings to eliminate discrimination on the basis of any differences, including sexual orientation and gender identity, and ensure compliance with EY’s Inclusion and Non-discrimination Global Policy.
• Acknowledging same-sex partners as equal to legal spouses for benefits policies on childcare and nursing care leave, celebratory and bereavement gifts, etc.
• Offering EY Japan members parental paid leave before childbirth by a spouse, partner or de facto partner, including same-sex partner.
• Including gender affirming surgery in the company’s health insurance plans and approving private medical leave for operations in Japan or overseas. [This option has already been used by an EY member.]
• Hosting awareness-raising activities inside EY Japan and externally by Unity, our  LGBT+ and Allies’ Network
• Implementing inclusive toilets suitable for everyone, including transgender people. These were suggested by Unity and are in use not only within EY Japan’s own Tokyo Office space but also in the entire building. 
• Forming a cross-sector network of companies, providing LGBT+ members with a safe space to build personal networks while feeling safe psychologically.
• Pledging our support for “Business for Marriage Equality” and “Business Support for LGBT Equality in Japan.”

In addition, EY Japan is a sponsor of Pride House Tokyo, a project offering a wide range of events and content about diversity. We have also worked closely with NPOs to promote Diversity and Inclusiveness in the sports industry by utilizing our expertise and professional network through various panel discussions and awareness-raising activities.

EY Japan’s Purpose (our reason for being) is Building a better working world and embraces Diversity & Inclusiveness (D&I), aiming to create an environment and foster a professional culture where EY members can perform at their best. As we undergo “once in a hundred year” transformation where it is difficult to predict the future, welcoming and leveraging the various perspectives of EY members is critical to quickly capturing any signs of transformation. In this way we will make our “Long-term Value (LTV) Vision” a reality and promote it to clients, the economy, society and to EY itself in order to effect, transform and support value creation with a long-term perspective. This is how we aim to serve as a model for creating LTV for all stakeholders.

The Pride Index was started in 2016 by “work with Pride (*1)”, a non-profit organization set up to promote and institutionalize diversity management and to benchmark and reward companies and groups for working on LGBT+ initiatives (*2). EY Japan has participated in the Pride Index since 2017 and has now received its fifth consecutive Gold award.

*1 “work with Pride” is a non-profit organization set up to promote and institutionalize diversity management for LGBT+, i.e., the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other sexual minorities.

*2 The awards system is scored and classified in five categories which are: 

1. Policy, 2. Representation, 3. Inspiration, 4. Development and 5. Engagement/Empowerment.

*3 Ernst & Young Tax & Co. received the Gold award in 2016, and EY Japan has participated in the index since 2017.