Race, society and innovation – 07/04/2023 – Policies and Justice

Nowadays, thinking about innovation based on solving old problems of society is fundamental for Brazil. Historically, the racial issue has always been addressed subjectively in our country, without guarantees of engagement by the various layers of society, especially companies, which retain a good portion of the responsibility for reducing social inequality through employability, income generation and employment of minority groups.

With these aspects in mind, the Pact for the Promotion of Racial Equity is an initiative that proposes to implement a racial ESG protocol for Brazil, bringing the racial issue to the center of the Brazilian economic debate and attracting the attention of large national and multinational companies and civil society. for the theme.

In this sense, it is important to recognize that access to real and concrete data on racial imbalance in Brazilian companies is something innovative. Being able to offer companies a tool that measures this racial imbalance, based on public data, is transformative and guarantees a series of possibilities for promoting diversity and reducing inequalities.

In this context, if we consider the potential impact of the first 50 companies that joined the Pact for the Promotion of Racial Equity, evaluating the number of black and non-black professionals engaged in an anti-discrimination policy, such as the commitment of these companies to qualify, prepare and allocating these black professionals in leadership positions would in itself be of great importance.

However, we will be even more provocative, in order to show society the financial potential of social investments in education, the labor market and entrepreneurship, defended by the pact, to be carried out by these companies.

The innovative methodology developed by the association aims to help companies transform the racial reality “beyond their walls”. That is, by investing financial resources in projects and organizations that have racial equity as one of their premises or impacts, companies will be able to gain positions in their racial equity rating, along with certification of the racial ESG protocol of the Pact for the Promotion of Equity Racial.

The allocation of Private Social Investment in racial equity reflects the objective of improving the formation of qualified black labor over a generation, giving preference to interventions that support the integral formation of black labor and their insertion in the labor market.

These social investments will, by definition, be carried out outside the organization, respecting the assumptions suggested in the Protocol, which encourage projects and programs to promote racial equity, through education, citizenship and black entrepreneurship.

The greater the racial imbalance of the company in favor of non-blacks (versus the racial representation of the regions in which it operates), the greater the company’s Social Investment of Reference (ISR). Thus, for example, two companies with the same proportion of racial imbalance may have different ISR depending on the number of employees – the more employees, the higher the ISR.

The reference social investment (ISR) is calculated based on the annual training cost of enough young black people for the company to reach racial balance, limited to R$ 30 million/year, per economic group. The racial deficit of an employee in a Higher Education occupation entails twice the ISR, compared to the deficit of an employee in an Elementary/High School occupation.

The formula considers the estimate of average costs with quality educational training in Brazil for Elementary/High School. A study by Todos pela Educação (2015) estimates that the Annual Value per Student (AVA) of public basic education is approximately R$ 6.0 thousand/student, from which there is evidence of marginal gains in IDEB grades. For Higher Education, the annual cost is approximately BRL 12.0 thousand/student based on the tuition of Brazilian private and philanthropic colleges ranked in Times Higher Education 2021.

In this sense, if we consider the results of the PACTO Sectorial Index, the sector of each company and the assumptions of Social Investment of Reference, we could exceed R$ 1 Bi of private social investments in education and initiatives that promote racial equity. However, it is important to emphasize that the precise numbers will only be known when the companies that joined the protocol complete the cycle of the first year of membership.

Taking into account the number of black children and young people who will have their first and, perhaps, their only opportunity to receive shelter, education, instruction and qualification in order to be able to choose a worthy profession and with more employability opportunities, we understand that the Pact is a great key to social change. The song “It’s all for yesterday” leads us to reflect on this proposal. After all, to live is to leave, come back and share.

The editor, Michael França, asks each participant of the space “Politics and Justice” of the Sheet suggest a song to the readers. In this text, the one chosen by Gilberto Costa was “É tudo para tarde”, by Emicida with participation by Gilberto Gil.

This article was created with the collaboration of the Master in Economics José Henriques Ribeiro Júnior, Research and Statistics Coordinator, and the Executive Manager, Guibson Trindade Torres, both from the Pact Association for the Promotion of Racial Equity.

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