Corvinus research: Women lead more sustainable economies

Imre Fertő, a professor at Corvinus University, and his Hungarian-Slovenian research team examined the management of more than 300 Hungarian arable crop enterprises to find out what environmental efficiency differences exist in them according to the gender of the company’s management officials. The analysis, based on data from the Agricultural Accountancy Data Network (FADN), was published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports at the beginning of May.

According to the results, farms run by women are consistently more eco-efficient than businesses run by men: on average, they achieve a 14 percent higher eco-efficiency score (0.361) than men (0.316). The index, created by the researchers, between 0 and 1, indicates the ability of the enterprise to reduce environmental impact: to what extent it can produce its agricultural products with minimal environmental damage while maintaining the current added economic value. Environmental damage was characterized by the expenditure on fertilizers and pesticides, as well as energy consumption per hectare.

The environmental efficiency advantage of female leadership is largely due to the fact that women manage resources better, and the collaborative, innovative and long-term planning management practices and decision-making methods they apply also play a role. If we look only at highly eco-efficient companies, women-led farms perform even more outstandingly compared to men.