The Diversity Agenda: our commitment to get more women into engineering and architecture

We are delighted to get behind the Diversity Agenda – an industry-wide campaign that is galvanising scores of Kiwi companies around one common goal: 20 percent more women engineers and architects by 2021.

The campaign will address critical issues like retaining and promoting women to leadership roles and ensuring pay equity.

The Diversity Agenda started as a collaboration between Engineering New Zealand, the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) and the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ). Beca is one of 40 organisations who have signed up as Founding Partners and Change Makers.

Beca's Managing Director - New Zealand, Darryl-Lee Wendelborn, says she believes it’s critically important for leaders in the industry to collectively commit to the campaign for change.

“There are so many good reasons to change the status quo,” she said, “We want a more gender-balanced workforce and greater diversity of thought; not only is it the right thing to do, it just makes good business sense. Research shows us that companies with more women are 15 percent more likely to financially outperform in their industry, and companies with women on their boards are 26 percent more profitable than those with all male boards – stats like that should be a real rallying cry for us all. I’m excited that at Beca, we’re not only lending our voice to the cause, we’re committed to real, actionable change.”

The Diversity Agenda works by getting organisations to commit to adopting more inclusive practices. It’s backed up by a hard-hitting social media campaign featuring the stories of women working in architecture and engineering.

Learn more about the Diversity Agenda and how you can influence change here: www.diversityagenda.org

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