Women make up half the world’s population, drive around three quarters of consumer purchasing, consistently live and buy greener than men, yet account for just a quarter of the workforce in renewable energy and have even less of a presence in top-level decision-making for a green future.

It is clear that if climate change and other pressing environmental issues are to be addressed then female participation in the green economy will need to be significantly increased.

Women are central to the green economy

Studies show that women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing, whether directly or by having the final say on household spending. Women buy most of the goods used in their households, particularly for their children, as well as for elderly parents and the extended family such as in-laws. This is true of all societies, no matter their stage of development.

At the same time, women have consistently smaller carbon footprints than men, again whether they are rich or poor. In OECD countries, women are more likely to buy recyclable, eco-labelled and energy-efficient products and services.[i] Women are, for example, more likely than men to take the bus rather than drive. Women have been shown to pay more attention to ethical issues when considering purchases,[ii] such as whether an item was made using child labour, involved animal testing in its development, or comes wrapped in plastic.

Women also have greater responsibilities concerning household and community resources and waste, and in the management of natural resources, such as farming, water management, crop planting, and protecting and caring for seedlings and small trees. Women also tend to choose the least polluting energy sources. And, when natural disasters occur, communities survive better where women take the lead in early warning systems, mutual help, and reconstruction.

Women disproportionately affected by climate change

Despite this, more women die in natural disasters than men, and women are at the greatest risk of violence in a disaster’s aftermath and less able to care for themselves and their families.[iii] And despite paying greater attention to green matters, women bear most of the consequences of climate change.

Women make up most of the world’s poor, who in turn are the most dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as subsistence agriculture, forestry and water.[iv] Household work such as gathering firewood, collecting water and feeding families is done mostly by women, and when these resources are threatened, women and children suffer the most. Because of this, it is frequently women who both devise the means to cope with the impacts of climate change and build resilience for the future, such as by adapting farming practices.

Despite this, restrictions on female land ownership make it hard for women to farm, while difficulties accessing credit, training and technologies raise the barriers to forging other types of living. Daughters may drop out of school to help their mothers, so deprive themselves of an education and spread the disadvantage into the next generation.

This can be extremely wasteful. The United Nations Development Programme has calculated that gender inequality on average costs sub-Saharan Africa $95 billion a year, or 6 percent of GDP.[v]

An example of how gender inequality weighs on the green economy was cited in a study of gender and forestry management, where project managers for the regeneration of a denuded forest in the Khao Kho district of northern Thailand had consulted only the local men on the best way to carry out the project. The men said they needed hardwood trees for making furniture and for woodcarvings. So, three thousand hardwood seedlings were provided. The women of the village, however, neglected these seedlings and let them die. When forestry officials asked why they had done this the women revealed that what they wanted was seedlings for softwood trees they could use as fuel wood and fodder. The project managers then provided seedlings for both hardwood and softwood trees, thus fulfilling the needs of all the village.

Changing the under-representation of women in the green economy

The issue of female under-representation in the green economy is not confined to the developing world. EY reported in 2019 that even in G20 countries, just 40 percent of women have access to a bank account, and although women own a third of small and medium-sized enterprises, they receive just 10 percent of loans granted by banks.[vi]

The green economy of the future will be particularly hard hit by gender inequality if things don’t change. Today, around 80 percent of green jobs are in secondary sectors such as construction, engineering, financial services and manufacturing, in each of which women are currently severely under-represented. The situation is particularly stark in the energy sector, where women constitute less than 6 percent of technical staff and 1 percent of higher management.[vii] And despite the green economy being expected to add millions of new jobs in coming years, less than a quarter of jobs in the today’s renewable energy sector are held by women.[viii]

If women are to play the role they can in building a greener economy, then they will need to be empowered women to do things as they see fit. A good place to start is with the UN’s Women's Empowerment Principles, which seek to establish and promote gender equality as a high-level corporate goal, to ensure the health and safety of both male and female workers, to promote education and professional development for women, to ensure women’s rights are in place right across the supply chain, and to measure and report on progress.

Training is of particular importance for women in the green economy. Women trained in research and development for environmentally friendly products can contribute to designs that appeal to women as much as men, making green products easier to sell and helping to push sustainability further into the mainstream.

To increase female participation in the green economy, the existing under-representation is so high that specific, gender-based initiatives and interventions may be required.

Besides training in these areas, another key disadvantage for women is the availability of credit. It will be essential to work to remove credit barriers to women if female-owned enterprises are to thrive. Crowdfunding and micro-loans are doing much to help such businesses get up and running in parts of the world where women have little financial independence, and these types of loan have proved remarkably low-risk, with an extremely high percentage of obligations met. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, where men are 30 percent more likely than women to have a bank account, designing loans and savings vehicles adapted to the needs of women has already enabled many to become entrepreneurs.

Land rights, too, are of critical importance in many parts of the world if women are to contribute more fully to sustainable land-use.

Ultimately, of course, women need to be empowered within the political realm. Only in this way can women play an equal part in drafting the legislation that will best push equality and bring women fully into the green economy.

This topic was be discussed further at the World Green Economy Summit (WGES) on October 20-21 at Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. To learn more about the World Green Economy Summit, please visit the following link http://www.wges.ae/

[i] https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2012/6/fast-forwarding-women-s-leadership-in-the-green-economy

[ii] http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---gender/documents/publication/wcms_101505.pdf

[iii] https://unwomen.org.au/our-work/projects/un-women-responding-to-natural-disasters/

[iv] https://www.oecd.org/dac/gender-development/Making-Climate-Finance-Work-for-Women.pdf

[v] https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/women-in-the-green-economy/

[vi] https://www.ey.com/en_us/women-fast-forward/how-can-more-women-become-architects-of-the-transformative-age

[vii] https://researchoutreach.org/articles/gender-equity-green-economy/?cn-reloaded=1

[viii] https://www.oecd.org/dac/gender-development/Making-Climate-Finance-Work-for-Women.pdf

© Special Contributions 2019