A new report highlights the ‘greatest increase in a single year’ for transgender-inclusive initiatives across businesses.

The Human Rights Campaign released their Corporate Equality Index highlighting how far businesses have come with transgender equality.

73% of CEI businesses offer transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage, from 511 last year to 647 this year.

This is in contrast to transgender equality scoring zero across the board just 15 years ago.

The report also finds nearly four-hundred businesses have adopted gender transition guidelines to establish best practices in transgender inclusion.

The reports states: ‘[T]his represents the greatest increase in a single year of employers offering transgender-inclusive health care benefits.’

HRC Foundation President Chad Griffin said: ‘These businesses know that LGBTQ equality isn’t just the right thing to do, it makes them stronger in our global economy.

‘Ensuring fairness in the workplace is a value and increasingly a policy norm.

‘This past year, as an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ bills spread across the country, corporate champions state to state – from South Dakota and Mississippi, and North Carolina and Georgia — made their voices heard and stood firmly on the side of fairness and equality,’ Griffin said.

The report also indicates a jump in the amount of businesses scoring 100% in the index.

A total of 517 businesses scored top marks by ensuring they met the standards set by the Human Rights Campaign.

These standards include sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination protections in company guidelines.

It also requires that non-religious businesses ‘have a written policy of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.’